Biographies are neat! They are stories of people's lives. That is quite interesting to me. We each have our own stories. Alan Bean is multi-talented. I had never heard his name before. He is an astronaut who can also paint. He wanted to paint what he had seen on the moon because the pictures taken didn't give off enough feeling. Included in this book are the photographs and painted pictures from Alan Bean. Sean Rubin did a tremendous job illustrating this book. It's a great read! Alan even used his astronaut boots to stamp his artwork and dust from his spacesuit to give his paintings a rough look. His paintings are beautiful. he author was actually able to work with Alan when creating this book. ( )

Ever since he and his paintings were featured as an Air and Space magazine cover story, Alan Bean has always been on my radar. I was delighted to find this picture book biography and quite pleased to see author Dean Robbins collaborated with Bean on this book. In fact, he dedicated this book to him. Alan Bean was both artist and astronaut and Robbins does an excellent job bringing this to life.
The high quality of this book is also due to the illustrations of Sean Rubin. He conveys Bean's artistic style marvelously, but does not copy it. My favorite illustration of the book is the wordless two-page spread of two astronaut shadows on the moon viewing Earth.
In an author's note at the end of the book, Robbins ends with this quote from Alan Bean - "I think of myself not as an astronaut who paints, but an artist who was once an astronaut". ( )