Tom Corbett: A Trip To The Moon
14/06/2014
A short piece on my efforts to track down a children's picture book I remember from when I was about eight years old or so.
The other day I was telling someone that I have always been interested in Space Exploration and Science Fiction, (See my later blog post Science Fiction: The lure of "What if?") and how I have always remembered my first grown-up tie. (Back then little boys got clip-on bow ties first.) It was dark green with red and yellow space-ships, planets and meteors on it. I also described recalling a children's picture book that I had at about eight years old or so.
Now we have the Internet, and I resolved to track the picture book down.
I thought it might be called something like "Billy and Betty go to the Moon". I remembered an image of two shiny-faced kids in an elevated lunar landscape, wearing the classic "fishbowl" clear helmets.
I searched for "1950s children's picture book "to the moon"", and it seems I'm not the only one with this interest. I found a great site dedicated to the subject, Dreams Of Space, and a tutorial site, : Old Children's Books. Neither had it.
I tried a Google image search for the same string and found (see postscript) a promising cover image that seemed to fit my memory, even if the title didn't. This gave me a title and author. A bit further down in the results was the same image, but that led to.........
Now we have the Internet, and I resolved to track the picture book down.
I thought it might be called something like "Billy and Betty go to the Moon". I remembered an image of two shiny-faced kids in an elevated lunar landscape, wearing the classic "fishbowl" clear helmets.
I searched for "1950s children's picture book "to the moon"", and it seems I'm not the only one with this interest. I found a great site dedicated to the subject, Dreams Of Space, and a tutorial site, : Old Children's Books. Neither had it.
I tried a Google image search for the same string and found (see postscript) a promising cover image that seemed to fit my memory, even if the title didn't. This gave me a title and author. A bit further down in the results was the same image, but that led to.........
Eureka!
An entry and great description at a blog related to the Dreams of Space site above. The book I recalled was: - Tom Corbett: A Trip to the Moon. Author Marcia Martin Illustrated by Frank Vaughn. New York, Wonder Books. 18 p. 21 cm. The book was published in 1953, which tallies with the time I recall seeing it. It seems it was based on "the main character in a series of Tom Corbett — Space Cadet stories that were depicted in television, radio, books, comic books, comic strips, and other media in the 1950s." (Article at Wikipedia on Tom Corbett) At that time there were no TV broadcasts here in New Zealand, and I had no idea of any of that, nor who Tom Corbett was. The post describes all the elements that would have made such an impression on me. His remark about the illustrator, "His children are beaming with energy and excitement at going to such a cool place." meshes exactly with my memory of "two shiny-faced kids". |
Amazing! I haven't seen these images for at least fifty years, but they were immediately recognisable.
My memory wasn't so hot on the names though, it is Johnny and Janie, not Billy and Betty!
My memory wasn't so hot on the names though, it is Johnny and Janie, not Billy and Betty!
No wonder when the other day I decided I "just wanted" to buy a real vintage-style cowboy shirt.....
I really wanted to buy these two as well when I came across them at American clothing company Rockmount's website.
Postscript:
I first found just the cover on this cool page of vintage space images at magpie site Pinterest. It just reeks of my 50's childhood.
I first found just the cover on this cool page of vintage space images at magpie site Pinterest. It just reeks of my 50's childhood.