Apollo 8 was the first mission to orbit the moon with a live human crew. The Apollo 8 mission was launched in December 1968. The crew consisted of three astronauts: William Anders, Frank Borman, and James Lovell. The crew orbited the moon ten times before returning back to Earth. They were picked up by the USS Yorktown, which I was also fortunate enough to visit in South Carolina. I thought that was a cool tie in to this book. I was fortunate enough to see a Saturn V rocket in Huntsville, and this book included illustrations and information about that, so that was very interesting.

I bought this book after we visited the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville. I attended Space Camp in 5th grade, and I love looking at space images. My daughter is space obsessed, so I thought this would be a good book to read to have something to discuss with her. I found it on clearance at Booksamillion, so I figured I would go ahead and get it. There were a lot of facts about the Apollo 8 mission, crew, and equipment. My lack of interest in space did not matter as much, because the book was written in a way that was engaging to the reader and I did enjoy learning new information.