Neil Armstrong
ISBN 1 85561 899 0
Keywords Biography, Aerospace industry
Ferdinand Magellan
ISBN 1 85561 897 4
Keywords Biography, Marine transport
The format of rather obvious questions seems rather artificial (more so now on re‐acquaintance with this series than first seemed apparent at RR 99/398), but in general it works well enough and does in fact help establish two more volumes contributing to what could become an increasingly interesting series of biographical works for seven‐ to nine‐year‐olds. The selection of subjects remains with explorers of different kinds and, without knowing future plans for the series, seems reasonably imaginative. Magellan being more distant in time, a more straightforward and factual approach is taken to his career, with considerable background to be sketched in. Neil Armstrong is still alive and receives an approach which is both more intimate and more personally sympathetic: the problems of life after being an astronaut are treated with appropriate (both to subject and audience) sensitivity. Armstrong’s is the best volume of the four so far published: whether any conclusions may be drawn from that (perhaps modern subjects will prove more successful than earlier historical ones, for example) remains unclear. Certainly, the questions posed on each page seem more superfluous in the earlier subjects, looking simply like pegs on which to hang the texts, while with the modern subjects they do seem to have more immediate relevance.
Either way, this looks set to build into a useful series of biographical reference for children, in class, home, or library.
