Awesome Space Robots

by Michael O'Hearn, Reid Simmons PhD (Consultant Editor)

Some people say that space is the final frontier. But robots are making space much less mysterious. Robots and robotic probes have been exploring the planets and helping astronauts do research since the 1970s. Look inside to learn about incredible space robots and the amazing things that they have discovered about our solar system.

Genres: Childrens, Science, Space

32 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Capstone Press just published my first novel, The El Dorado Map, a magical Wild West adventure for middle-grade readers.

Reviews

[Jim Erekson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This "Edge" series from Capstone pairs basic bare bones writing with large photos or hyper-realistic artwork to cover a topic. The topic is divided into chapters, and within each chapter subheaders deal with subtopics. Text boxes provide additional relevant facts on the subtopic.

The rationale for this book is that it takes a topic like Robots and spans a wide breadth of subtopics. I was expecting I could find this information on the internet, but not all gathered into one place. In this case, it was true. Because this book covers only the robots used in the space programs, there isn't a page dedicated to it. The Wikipedia article on Robotic Spacecraft doesn't cover all the subtopics this book does. So the book gets its rationale for existing by gathering information in one place and providing a corresponding visual experience. What I'm wondering is if this is the kind of specialized topic that would even be helpful for the series' purpose, which would be the school research report.

[Libby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, already I see in my 5 year old son an affinity for reading nonfiction. I saw this robots book and grabbed it because he'd expressed an interest in the Mars rovers. We only read the introductory chapter and the chapter on Mars robots together, and the book was probably a little above his age, even for listening, but he was still engrossed. I'm interested to see his reading choices in a few years...

I thought the book was well-done, with interesting pictures and pull-out facts, an organization that made sense (even to someone who'd had no prior knowledge about the variety of robots that get sent into space), and fairly simple text.