Astronauts : women on the final frontier

In the graphic novel Astronauts: Women on the Final Frontier , Jim Ottaviani and illustrator Maris Wicks capture the great humor and incredible drive of Mary Cleave, Valentina Tereshkova, and the first women in space.

The U.S. may have put the first man on the moon, but it was the Soviet space program that made Valentina Tereshkova the first woman in space. It took years to catch up, but soon NASA's first female astronauts were racing past milestones of their own. The trail-blazing women of Group 9, NASA's first mixed gender class, had the challenging task of convincing the powers that be that a woman's place is in space, but they discovered that NASA had plenty to learn about how to make space travel possible for everyone .

Author Notes

Jim Ottaviani began writing graphic novels about scientists in 1997. They include The Imitation Game , Primates , Feynman , and Hawking . His books are New York Times bestsellers, have been translated into over a dozen languages, and have received praise from publications ranging from Nature and Physics World to Entertainment Weekly and Variety .

Maris Wicks lives in sunny Somerville, Massachusetts. She is the author behind Human Body Theater , as well as the illustrator of New York Times- bestselling Primates , with Jim Ottaviani. When she's not making comics, Wicks works as a program educator at the New England Aquarium.

Reviews (3)

Horn Book Review

At the attention-grabbing start of -Ottaviani and Wicks's second graphic -collaboration (Primates, rev. 5/13), a series of panels shows a "famous astronaut" (gender intentionally obscured) shedding gear one item at a time until only stark white long johns remain. With a page-turn, readers meet (female) ex-astronaut Mary Cleave, who drolly admits that she's "maybe not so famous." But she gets the spotlight here-and the narrative reins, too-in a dense and riveting biography that not only tracks Cleave's path to NASA's Group 9 (the second astronaut class to include women) but also weaves in the voices of many trailblazers: Valentina Tereshkova, a Soviet cosmonaut and the first woman in space; the Mercury 13, thirteen American women who passed the same rigorous physical tests given to male astronaut candidates; and Sally Ride, the first American woman in space. A well-researched and lively text and tidily composed yet expressive illustrations capture the women's passion, ambition, and know-how-and their indignation and fury at the sexism they faced. Inspirational and funny ("That was Sally's ride") and full of nitty-gritty scientific details about astronaut training and life and work aboard a space shuttle, the book illuminates the women's tough journey to prove that "space is for everyone." Back matter includes an author's note (addressing composite characters and invented dialogue), a bibliography, a how-this-book-was-made spread, and character sketches. Tanya D. Auger May/June 2020 p.143(c) Copyright 2020. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Review

[How women got mad, busy, and finally, reluctantly, accepted into NASA's corps of astronauts.Recast by the creators of Primates (2013) from NASA oral-history interviews with ex-astronaut Mary Cleave and other eyewitnesses, this likewise lightly fictionalized memoir takes its narrator from childhood interests in science and piloting aircraft to two space shuttle missions and then on to later educational and administrative roles. The core of the tale is a frank and funny account of how women shouldered their way into NASA's masculine culture and as astronaut trainees broke it down by demonstrating that they too had both the competencies and the toughness that added up to the right stuff. Highlighted by a vivid series of scenes showing Cleave with a monkey on her chest, then a chimpanzee, an orangutan, a gorilla, and finally a larger gorilla to symbolize the G-forces of liftoff, Wicks offers cleanly drawn depictions of technical gear, actual training exercises, eye-rolling encounters with sexist reporters and clueless NASA engineers, iconic figures (such as a group portrait of the watershed astronaut class of 1978: "Twenty-six white guys and ninewellpeople who were not. Pretty diverse for NASA"), and astronauts at work on the ground and in space. They capture both the heady thrill of space travel and the achievements of those who led the way there.Exhilaratingas well as hilarious, enraging, or both at once depending on the reader. (afterword, print and web resources) (Informational graphic novel. 11-14) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Narrated in large part by Mary Cleave, who was among the second group of women admitted to NASA's astronaut training program, this in-depth and enlightening comic digs into not only the history of women in space but the rigors of the training process in general. There's a lot here, but Ottaviani and Wicks (Primates, 2013) handle it deftly, bringing humor and clarity to the density of the material. The sequence, for instance, in which Jerrie Cobb and Janey Hart testify in a congressional hearing about the importance of including women in the space program is cleverly intercut with scenes of Valentina Tereshkova preparing for her history-making spaceflight. Wicks makes great use of facial expressions glib mockery from the U.S. senators, frustration on Cobb and Hart to emphasize just what these women were up against. For all the trail-blazing, however, Ottaviani and Wicks emphasize above all else that the women in these programs are talented pilots and scientists, and they had essential work to do. Yes, some of that work was pushing back against sexist notions (jokes came in particularly handy here), but first, it was successfully operating a space shuttle. Gobs of humor, lively artwork, and tidy explanations of the science make this a standout among the vast field of books about the U.S. space program.--Sarah Hunter Copyright 2020 Booklist

Available:*

Bound With These Titles