Mousetronaut (Mark Kelly | C.F. Payne)

My son and daughter received a book in the mail recently, sent to them by a friend and co-worker of my wife (Thanks Scott!). It was presented as a current 'family favorite' in their house hold. After several reads cover to cover, I can see why.

Mousetronaut is the story of a trip to orbit which included six lab mice tagalongs. Comet, the smallest of the bunch is picked to join the team because of his tenacity and drive to achieve. Once in space, his size does not stop him from adopting new skills and adapting quickly. When the Astronauts get in a pinch, only Comet can find a solution that will save the day. An important key gets lost and only Comet is small enough to save the day.

Written by Mark Kelly, retired Commander/Astronaut on the Spaceshuttle Endeavor, he describes this as a 'partially true' story. Based off a spunky mouse on one of his shuttle flights, though the heroic actions are fictional.

Mousetronaut is primarily a picture book, with no greater than a hundred words per page. As such, it would be nowhere without the highly detailed artwork. Illustrations by CF Payne really made it great.

Kid Perspective:

My youngest (9 months) has no care for this, she just wants to eat it.

This book took a while for my oldest kid to get into. Every time I would mention 'Mousetronaut' he would only hear 'Mouse' and immediately gravitate toward ABCMouse, begging to play his 'games'. Repeatedly this occurred, and his 2.5 year old frustration level would rise as he realized I was discussing a book, not ABCMouse.

After several attempts, I temp swapped the title for 'Space Mouse' and he absorbed it better. One read through and he was hooked. There was no more need to modify the title.

My son is really into this now, and gets involved in the detailed pictures. He will point to things he is interested in and have a mini discussion as only a two year old can. Comet the mouse is amazing to him. He seems to understand the absolute base concept of floating in space, but it is still more magic than science.

Just tonight I found him counting down the lift off of the space shuttle, obviously I was impressed.

Parent Perspective:

This book is cooooool. There are others in the series that I will have to investigate getting copies of. It is a short read, so no long term bedtime commitment is needed.

There are several pages at the tail of the book which detail how the formation of the story occurred. They also contain more robust knowledge of the world space race. This section will probably help keep this book interesting to the Spawn for much longer than other picture books of similar quality. Also good for reading between books, while the kiddo is off tearing down bookshelves for which ever book is on bottom. The bottom book is the only one worth reading to a two year old. ;)

I have to wonder two things:

1. Why was the key, which turns out was flight critical, loose. The astronauts need a protective latchkey mother to crochet a necklace for it. Or some form of retracting key ring, like every janitor on the planet.
2. Did the other mice dislike the elitist free range roaming that Comet is obviously allowed? How else is he able to just show up and assist with no prompting..