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The Sea of Tranquility

mark haddon christian birmingham

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In anticipation of the first lunar landing, a little boy in London fantasizes about astronauts walking in space, orbiting the earth, and flying to the moon, and one July day, his dream becomes a reality.

32 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1,1996

This edition

Format
32 pages, Hardcover
Published
January 1, 1996 by Harcourt Childrens Books
ISBN
9780152012854
ASIN
0152012850
Language
English

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About the author

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mark haddon

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Mark Haddon is an English novelist, best known for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003). He won the Whitbread Award, the Dolly Gray Children's Literature Award, the Guardian Prize, and a Commonwealth Writers Prize for his work.

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Community Reviews

Rating(4.1 / 5.0, 28 votes)
5 stars
9(32%)
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12(43%)
3 stars
7(25%)
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28 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Tomatogal
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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A child's dreams of walking on the moon like Aldrin and Armstrong come to nothing, probably because the child is British and also because NASA doesn't do that sort of thing any more (if it ever did, of course). He could approach that Beagle bloke with the sideburns from the Open University I suppose, but realistically he's better off just staring out of his window lamenting.
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midnightblade
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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This inspirational story should be a reminder to all children that if you are interested in something, embrace it. Although this little boy never actually went to the moon, he knows more about it than most, and always has a place in his heart for it. Follow your interests, should be the message taken from this story. Would recommend for bedtime, or for 1-3 graders who love to read.
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MrResidentFox
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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Fifty years ago today . . .

Midnight had come and gone,
but the boy was wide awake
and standing at the window
in his dressing gown,
because two astronauts
were walking on the surface of the moon,
two hundred thousand miles
above his bedroom.

A lovely look back at a special event that still gives me chills.
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Liuz3
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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Weird, ethereal and eerie little short story that is quite good. Would liked it to have been longer but good nevertheless.
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DoctorTrash
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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A fictionalisation of the author's childhood dream to walk on the moon.

NASA's Constellation program may be planning to return people to the moon for the first time since 1972 - but somehow I doubt that in 40 years time someone will write a picture book about how it deeply affected their lives...

Oh - and I like the new cover much more than the original - I suspect its going to be a long, long, long time before children have the opportunity to walk on the moon!
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-everglow-
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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Footprints on the Moon is a historical fiction picture book. This book is about a boy who dreams of one day being an astronaut and walking on the moon. When Apollo 11 does land on the moon he is able to watch it on TV, later that night he dreams that he is walking on the moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. I think that this book would work very well to introduce a creative writing piece during the Earth and Space thematic unit. I would read this book and have students pay particular attention to the section where the boy is dreaming. I would instruct the students to write their own story about landing on the moon or another planet.
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IsaacAcotas
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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Years ago, a little boy gazed at the moon, dizzy with the thought that he was looking at a world 200,000 miles away. As he read atlases and library books and kept clippings on astronauts orbiting the moon, he hoped and hoped that they would find a way to land there. And one extraordinary day they did, captured on his flickery TV, like giants bouncing in slow motion. When the boy fell asleep, he dreamed that he walked with them too. In this lyrical, transporting tale, Mark Haddon, the boy in the story, conveys the thrill of one moment in history through a child's eyes, aided by Christian Birmingham's evocative illustrations. www.hcpl.net
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