Countdown: 2979 Days to the Moon

Guides by Deb – Keeping your books in the hearts of young readers and in the hands of those who care for them.

The guide linked below was created by Debbie Gonzales, MFA. Deb is a career educator, curriculum consultant, former school administrator and adjunct professor, and once served as a SCBWI RA for the Austin Chapter. She's the author of six “transitional” readers for a New Zealand publisher and the forthcoming non-fiction picture book Girls with Guts: The Road to Breaking Barriers and Bashing Records (Charlesbridge, 2019). Deb earned her MFA in writing for children and young adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Are you interested in discussing a reader’s guide project? If so, click here. Deb’s eager to hear from you!

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Author: Suzanne Slade

Illustrator: Thomas Gonzalez

Publisher: Peachtree Publishers

ISBN:  978-1682630136

Synopsis: Powerful free verse and stunning illustrations tell the true story of the American effort to land the first man on the Moon.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced that the United States would try to land a man on the Moon by the end of the decade. During the two thousand nine hundred and seventy-nine days following his speech, eighteen astronauts climbed into spaceships; three of them died before even leaving the ground. Eight rockets soared into space. And four hundred thousand people―engineers, technicians, scientists, mathematicians, and machinists―joined Project Apollo in hopes of making the dream a reality.
Award-winning author and former mechanical engineer Suzanne Slade joins up with New York Times best-selling illustrator Thomas Gonzalez to tell the powerful story of the successes, failures, triumphs, tragedies, and lessons from Apollos 1 through 10 that led to the first Moon landing.

Click here for Teacher Guide