Space Books We Love

Billie’s Outer Space Adventure by Sally Rippin is an Usborne book that we adore. It is about Billie who goes to preschool and is pretending to going on a space mission. This book has a moral which is awesome. It talks about being scared and getting your feelings hurt. Of course, the characters then work out a way to overcome those feelings. One my favorite part about this book is that the characters are two kids who figure out a solution to the problem on their own and do not get an adult to solve their problem. That’s fabulous modeling for our preschoolers because that is the ultimate goal. We want them to be problem solvers who solve not only academic problems, but also social problems independently.

Rufus Blasts Off! is by Kim T. Griswell. This is another one of those books where the character wants to go to space, but he doesn’t quite seem like the right fit for an astronaut. In this book Rufus, a pig, keeps trying to go to space and keeps getting told no and that he’s not the right fit. But when a teacher who is supposed to go into space with the astronauts get sick, Rufus is able to fill in her spot. Rufus ends up reading a book in space to the students on Earth.

Now, if you know anything about actual space history, you’ll be able to tell that this book is inspired by the Challenger Space Shuttle. The Challenger Space Shuttle was a space mission where a history teacher, who was not an astronaut, got to go along for the ride to space and the plan was for her to teach a lesson in space and have it broadcasted on Earth. Unfortunately, the actual Challenger Space Shuttle in 1986 experienced complications and blew up before making it to space with all of the astronauts on board.

Look Inside Space is another Usborne Book. The Look Inside Space book is a non-fiction text. I think, as parents, we tend to shy away from non-fiction text when we read to our Lil’s. Don’t get me wrong, stories and books filled with imagination and adventure are fabulous and amazing. I’m certainly not going to cut those out of our reading selection, but it’s also important to start introducing our kids to some non-fiction text.

This is why I really like this book: it’s non-fiction but it’s written in a super approachable way. This is a lift-the-flap book and it’s written in a manner where you could sit down and read the text cover to cover or you could read a few pages and come back later and read a few more.

This book is an opportunity to teach your Lil’s what outer space really is and I think it is valuable to teach our Lil’s both the imaginary as well as the factual at the same time.