No Need for A Bounce House! If You Had Your Birthday Party On The Moon by Joyce Lapin

HOW AMAZING would it be to have your birthday party on the moon?

Getting there would be half the fun--three days of weightless headstands and somersaults, as the guests watch the earth recede and turn into that familiar big blue marble and the moon get bigger and bigger as they sleep tethered to their spaceship.

But once they touch down on the lunar surface and don their space helmets and moon boots, it's time to climb out, ready to party hearty. But it's your birthday, so....

It's one small step for the birthday boy!

By the bright light of earthshine under the black sky of space, the party goers can peer into asteroid craters, jump six times higher than on earth, and throw a ball out of sight. And for party games, there's the potential for a super space scavenger hunt, looking for the footprints of the Apollo astronauts, the flags they planted, and the stuff they left behind:

... twelve sets of space boots, a four-leaf clover, a falcon feather, a moon buggy,

astronaut Alan Shepherd's two golf balls, a recorded message from the Queen of England....

And who can resist making moon-dust angels on the moon's surface!

But back in the moon lander, it's time for the birthday cake and birthday wishes.

There's one small problem. Candles won't light without air.

There's air inside your rocket, but you may not want to waste it on candles!

Although you may not want to wait for Pizza Inn to deliver your pizzas, in Joyce Lapin's brand-new birthday book, If You Had Your Birthday Party on the Moon (Sterling Children's Books, 2019), there's all this and more to do at a lunar birthday party, along with plenty of space fact-boxes to make this one great science field trip/birthday bash. Author Lapin adds an appendix, with glossary, bibliography, suggested reading list, and links to videos to watch the Apollo moon walkers having lunar fun, and artist Simona Ceccarelli makes the most of the chance to show giddy party guests making the most of their lunar near-weightless high jinxs--all of which are the party-style wrappings for what is a fact-filled nonfiction outing.