Most rocket books written for five year olds are wallpaper. Bright art, a countdown, a moon, and no idea anywhere in them.
This one has an idea in it. The idea is that the rocket comes apart on purpose.
Rabbit, Bird and Mouse ride up to the Moon and home again in Tony Mitton's rhyming couplets, drawn by Ant Parker. Same series as Amazing Airplanes, same $6.99, same few minutes out loud. Not the same book, because of what happens on the way up.
The science it actually teaches
Staging. That is the one that matters, and it is the reason this title is on the shelf and most of its competition is not.
A rocket does not go to the Moon the way a plane goes to Seattle. It burns fuel, sheds the empty part of itself, and keeps climbing. Then it does it again. Plenty of adults cannot say why that happens. A child who has had this book read to them a few times can at least say what happens, which is that pieces fall off deliberately and the ship gets smaller as it goes. That is the front door to the whole reason space flight is hard, which is that most of what you are lifting is the fuel to lift the fuel.
Under that one, a short run of smaller things the book gets right instead of prettying up.
There is no air out there, and the helmet is the reason the crew is alive rather than part of the outfit. Things drift when nothing holds them down, which is what the gripping boots are for. The Moon is ground you land on and drive on, not a light in the sky. And getting home is its own separate piece of work, not a scene change.
Now the limit, stated plainly. None of this is explained. It is shown, named and rhymed straight past at speed. The book hands your child the what and leaves you holding the why, which at four and five is the right division of labor, but you should know before you buy that you are the half that has to show up.
The child it lands with
The space child, obviously. Three to six, wants the rocket every night, has opinions about the Moon.
But the better fit is the child who is already asking mechanical questions about things, because this is one of the few books at this level that gives such a child something to actually chew. How does it come apart. Why would you want it to. Where does the piece go. A book that starts real questions at four is doing more than a book that answers easy ones.
Skip it for a child who has moved on to reading about actual missions. This is a lap book and it will read as one.
One place to stop and talk
Stop the first time a piece of the rocket falls away. Then put the book down and use your arms.
Pick up three books. Walk across the room holding all three. Drop one, walk faster. Drop another, walk faster still. That is the page you just read. The rocket throws away the part it has already burned, because hauling an empty tank costs speed it needs. A five year old gets that from the books in your arms in about eight seconds and will not get it from a paragraph. Two minutes of your time turns a picture into a principle, and this is the only page in the book where that trade is on offer.
What to know going in
Nothing upsetting happens. No danger, no dark, everyone comes home.
The caution here is a correction, and you have to make it out loud or the book plants something false. The title is Roaring Rockets and the whole thing is built out of noise, which is true and thrilling for the first minute of a launch and then stops being true. Past the air, nothing roars. Sound needs something to travel through and out there is nothing, which is exactly why the crew has helmets. The book does not stop to say so. If you do not say it, your child walks away believing space is loud, and that is a small wrong idea that sits there for years and gets defended in fourth grade.
One line at the right page fixes it, and honestly it becomes the best moment in the reading.
The other thing, briefly: same band problem as the rest of this series. The store says K to 3, the book is built for three to six. Aim at the bottom of that band.
Where to get it
Roaring Rockets is $6.99 here, which is picture book money for something that will get read forty times, so work out the cost per reading before you decide it is slight. Aim it at a three to six year old rather than at the K to 3 band on the tag. It is filed under Stealth Science.
If your child liked this one
Books we have written about that sit close to this one, by reading level and by subject.
Amazing Airplanes: The Right Words, in the Right Order
Amazing Airplanes by Tony Mitton Ant Parker
Grade K to 3
Ada Twist and the Perilous Pants: Why Helium Goes Up
Ada Twist and the Perilous Pants: The Questioneers Book #2 by Andrea Beaty
Grade 1 to 4
Caterflies and Ice: The Book Where Zoey Gets It Wrong
Caterflies and Ice: Zoey and Sassafras #4 by Asia Citro
Grade 1 to 4
Dragons and Marshmallows: The Science and the Catch
Dragons and Marshmallows: Zoey and Sassafras #1 by Asia Citro
Grade 1 to 4
Browse every book we have written about by age, by kind of book and by subject: Find the right book for your child. Or see the whole Stealth Science shelf.
