Little Katie Goes to the Moon


Children - Educational
42 Pages
Reviewed on 04/04/2016
Buy on Amazon

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Author Biography

Carmela Dutra is an award-winning author, storyteller, illustrator, wife, mother, and photographer. She resides with her family in the California Bay Area, along with her four cats. She is best known for her frequent visits to classrooms in her community, where she shares her books and encourages children to set free their creativity through writing, and drawing.

“Literature has the ability to open up a whole new world to children, but we need to have a share in helping them to find that door and open it with them. Let’s set the example and help to foster this love of reading in our little ones. ” ~ Carmela Dutra~

    Book Review

Reviewed by Jane Finch for Readers' Favorite

Little Katie Goes To The Moon by Carmela Dutra tells the story of Katie and her dog Smudge, who take a wonderful journey to visit the Man in the Moon. Katie and Smudge don their space suits and take off on their journey, eventually landing on the moon. Here they see the footprints of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, who had been the first men to land on the moon. They also see equipment left by the former explorers and experience a moonquake. Then they return to Earth where Mum is waiting, and Katie tells her mum about their exciting adventure.

This is a delightfully simple story, but made more appealing by the useful additional facts and information woven into the tale. It’s a clever way to teach children about the moon and they won’t even realise they are being taught. This is an imaginary journey, but it is skilfully told and children will delight in its excitement and believability. The illustrations are colourful and amusing and perfectly complement the story.

The author, Carmela Dutra, has managed to turn a simple adventure into an educational story that every young child will enjoy. The addition of Smudge the dog on the journey is clever as his antics – such as jumping at the moonquake – are endearing. This is a book that would do well in pre-school and kindergarten where the teacher can explain about the moon, the important role it plays, and a discussion of the facts woven into the tale.

Jack Magnus

Little Katie Goes to the Moon is a children's educational picture book written and illustrated by Carmela Dutra. Katie dreams of going to outer space when she grows up, and she knows a lot about it. The moon, however, is her favorite celestial body, and when she decides to take her first interplanetary voyage along with her dog, Smudge, her destination just has to be the moon. They are both prepared for the challenges of outer space and have protective space suits. Their spaceship has to work extra hard to escape the earth's atmosphere, but once they’re past it, they can relax and enjoy the marvelous sights. They see Halley's Comet and stars, and satellites which are busily taking pictures and transmitting them back to the scientists on earth. Landing on the moon is, of course, the big event of the trip. Katie and Smudge get to see the footprints left by the astronauts who had been there before her, and she tells Smudge all about the experimental equipment that was left on the moon by Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong.

Carmela Dutra's educational picture book for children, Little Katie Goes to the Moon, is a brilliant introduction to cosmology that will be sure to get future young astronauts' imaginations soaring into outer space. The author packs an impressive amount of scientific information into this story, both through direct questions to the reader and Katie's discussions with her dog, and these devices work beautifully. And while I am a big fan of cosmology and loved both Carl Sagan's and Neil Degrasse Tyson's Cosmos series, I was delighted to find that I was adding to my interplanetary knowledge along with Katie and Smudge. Dutra's illustrations are a perfect accompaniment to her story of adventuring in space. I especially appreciated the elegance and deceptive simplicity of her designs. They made me want to take up a pencil and start sketching out the lines and shading in the colors, and that's a very good thing. Little Katie Goes to the Moon educates as it entertains, and it's grand food for young imaginations to savor and thrive upon. It's most highly recommended.

Gisela Dixon

Little Katie Goes to the Moon by Carmela Dutra is a cute children’s educational book about the power of imagination with some fun facts about the moon. Katie is a very young girl who loves outer space and the moon and wants to visit there. One day, she and her dog Smudge decide to do just that and take us on a flight of imagination to the moon in a rocket ship. Along the way, the book is filled with nuggets of information about spacesuits, flying in a rocket, landing on the moon, facts about who landed on the moon first, the geology of the moon and its craters, moonquakes, etc. Katie and Smudge are the only two main characters in this story and are very easy for kids to identify with.

There is an inherent excitement in the book because of the theme of exploring outer space and the moon and I am sure kids would love it. This is a great starter book for a child who is interested in astronomy and the planetary system. Little Katie Goes to the Moon by Carmela Dutra is written in a pleasing, simple, and engaging language that makes it a fun read for children and adults alike. I especially liked the fun facts about the moon scattered throughout the book and, in fact, learnt a thing or two about moonquakes myself! The illustrations accompanying the text are colorful and fun as well. All in all, this is a great book for children to read or for adults to read aloud to kids and I would recommend it.

Rosie Russell

A beautiful book arrived in the mail today called "Little Katie Goes to the Moon," written and illustrated by author Carmela Dutra!
This is a charming tale filled with a fun adventure as Katie and her dog named Smudge take a trip to the moon. Young readers will love the array of delightful illustrations and will be entertained with many fun facts about astronomy and the planetary system.
I highly recommend for this for boys and girls. This would be a fantastic book for teachers to add to their Science studies in their classrooms.

Kate Larkinson

The delightful story of a little girl and her dog taking a pretend trip to the moon enfold beautifully around lots of interesting facts and figures about the moon. My personal favorite was the distance between the earth and the moon expressed as the time it would take a car to drive it. That makes a lot more sense to me than a huge figure that I can’t comprehend! This is both a great introduction to cosmology for young children and lots of fun!