Space art in children's books

September 26, 2003 9:31 PM

Let's go on a rocket trip to the Moon! A collection of space art in children's books, 1883 to 1974. These books, and their evocative art, instilled in a generation the romance and wonder of space flight. I grew up in the 1950's, and as a kid I could pour over this book and its illustrations for hours, dreaming.
via A Voyage to Arcturus
posted by Slithy_Tove (8 comments total)

This rocks. Thank you very much for sharing!
posted by majick at 10:29 PM on September 26, 2003

*dies over coolness*

I recommend listening to Christmas On The Moon whilst viewing this site.
posted by Katemonkey at 11:26 PM on September 26, 2003

Great link.
posted by plep at 12:05 AM on September 27, 2003

When I think of rockets and outer space in a childrens' book or comic, I think of TinTin's 1953-1954 space adventure where creator Herge' tried to include some serious science (Mostly-Flash site, click on "the dosiers", then "conquest of space").
posted by wendell at 3:44 AM on September 27, 2003

Oooh. Nice.

They came out after 1974, and were SF instead of vaguely real-science-based, but when I was a wean in the late '70's, I loooooved my copy of Spacecraft 2000--2100AD -- scads of artwork with a thin story wrapped around it.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:54 AM on September 27, 2003

I miss the future.
posted by SPrintF at 9:21 AM on September 27, 2003

Personally, I like Maurice Sendak's pictures of Little Bear Goes to the Moon.
posted by Zurishaddai at 11:09 AM on September 27, 2003

Considering our lack of progress in this area for the last thirty years, this is so sad. Hopefully the kids of today will grow up to see some of their space-related dreams, i.e. the habitation of Mars, actually come true.
posted by Poagao at 7:16 PM on September 29, 2003