The Moon in Fact and Fancy

by Alfred Slote, John Kaufmann (Illustrator)

This book is called The Moon in Fact and Fancy. And that is exactly what it is about. Since time began, the storyteller and the scientist have shared the same materials--the world about them. Both told the truth as they saw it.
While the storyteller's explanations of the universe have not stood the tests of time and science, they have endured as beautiful tales with deep human values.
The scientist's quest is the same as the storyteller's: to understand and explain the unknown. His methods are different. He seeks out the facts as they are, not as he would like them to be or guesses them to be.
Yet as he probes deeper and deeper into the unknown, his theories will enter the realm of fancy.
So let's explore the moon together, guided by storyteller and scientist, by Beauty and Knowledge. Two better companions you'll never find.

123 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Alfred Slote (born September 11, 1926) is a children's author known for his numerous sports and space novels. His writing has been described as "making space travel seem as ordinary as piling in the family wagon for a jaunt to McDonald's". Slote's 1991 novel Finding Buck McHenry was adapted into a 2000 television film. He currently resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Reviews

[Willow · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was written shortly after the first lunar landings, so some of the scientific chapters are rather outdated. The viewpoint was decidedly evolutionary. I did appreciate the chapter that detailed the stages a rocket ship goes through on its journey to the moon and back.

The chapters about the moon in old tales and traditions were interesting, though some were kind of terrible, like the legend of why the moon has both light and dark spots (a wife is beaten by her angry husband and it leaves marks all over her face, and she flees into the sky and becomes the moon, all bruised). :-(