HarperCollins Mae Among the Stars Hardcover – Picture Book, 9 January 2018

Got this for our niece because her name is Mae. She loved having her name on a book. It was great.

I loved this book so much. I almost didn’t buy it based on the top reviewers review but I’m glad I didn’t. Had she seen the very last page, she would have know the main character was inspired by the first black female astronaut who worked for NASA in the late 70s.The message isn’t that jobs like firefighters, teachers, stay at home moms, and nurses aren’t jobs of value. If someone says they want to be one of the above, it’s going to be taken way more seriously. Nursing is a physically and emotionally difficult job, but there are many nurses out there and many are female. There aren’t many female astronauts and there definitely wasn’t in the 70s-80s. Unfortunately this reviewer took the children’s book too personally which is a shame. As someone who used to be a teacher and is now a stay at home mom, I took no offense to it. The message is that you can do or be whoever you want to be, nothing is out of reach (& in a literal sense too, Mae traveled to space).Mae wanted to see earth from afar even if the odds weren’t in her favor or even if no one would take her seriously. BUT, “If you can dream it, if you believe it and work hard for it, anything is possible.”Thank you to the author for writing a lovely story about a historic woman who achieved the impossible. The story is inspiring and knowing it’s based on a true story, my daughter now has a role model she didn’t know existed before. I can’t think of a better book for my daughter, especially considering that she wants to be an astronaut herself.Thank you to the illustrator too, the artwork is lovely.

ottima

The story line is inspiring; and the courage of the little girl and her mother will give confidence to children to live their dreams. The illustrations add power to the stories further that shows the father working in the kitchen and serving the girl and her mother. That is how patriarchy and racism can be challenged.

Lovely story. The class loved it