ASTRONAUTS

ASTRONAUTS WOMEN ON THE FINAL FRONTIER

JIM OTTAVIANI

A nonfiction graphic novel for middle grade readers about notable female astronauts. America may have put the first man on the moon, but it was the Soviet space program that made Valentina Tereshkova the first woman in space. Meanwhile, in the United States, NASA’s first female astronauts were racing toward milestones of their own. These trail-blazing women were admitted into Group 9, NASA’s first mixed-gender class. They had the challenging task of convincing the powers that be that a woman’s place is in space. But once they’d been admitted into the training program, they discovered that NASA had plenty to learn about how to make space travel possible for all humans. In Astronauts: Women on the Final Frontier, Jim Ottaviani and illustrator Maris Wicks capture the great humor and incredible drive of Mary Cleve, Valentina Tereshkova, and the first women in space.

JIM OTTAVIANI

Jim Ottaviani has written nonfiction, science-oriented comics since 1997, notably the number one New York Times bestseller, Feynman. He has worked as a nuclear engineer, caddy, programmer, and reference librarian. He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. gt-labs.com Maris Wicks lives with fellow primate Joe Quinones and their cat, Biggs, in Somerville, Massachusetts. She has used her opposable thumbs to draw comics for Adhouse Books, Tugboat Press, and Spongebob Comics, and written stories for Image and DC Comics. When she's not making comics, Maris works as a program educator at the New England Aquarium.