*Review* The Only Astronaut by Mahak Jain

 

Genre: Children's 3-7

Published: June 6, 2023

Pages: 40

A girl who loves solo space travel learns that having a partner can be even better.

Avni loves being the only astronaut in her space station. She’s in charge of when she takes off and where she goes. But space exploration can be a lot of work for one astronaut. It’s time for a new mission: find an assistant. Avni crisscrosses the distant galaxies (her neighborhood) in search of the perfect partner. Does that even exist? Will Avni make space for a copilot or will it be mission impossible?

Award-winning author Mahak Jain has crafted a witty and wonderful story about friendship, imagination and the thrill of a good adventure. Andrea Stegmaier’s dynamic and highly detailed art uses line drawing overlays in orange, for Avni, and blue, for Aya, to cleverly depict the world as seen in each of their imaginations. It’s a terrific representation of a child making room for both their own creativity and another’s perspective. Avni’s regular mantra, “An astronaut never gives up,” celebrates the power of perseverance and collaboration without compromising one’s goals. This book highlights the character education concepts of teamwork, cooperation, adaptability and resilience. It also offers an invitation to children to use their imaginations and remain open to the exciting possibilities of exploration (as astronauts or aquanauts!).

I received a copy of this book through Netgalley. This is my honest review. 

This was a fun little book about a space obsessed girl searching for a friend who is equally as space obsessed as she is. She has a mission log that includes important tasks like making Pluto a planet again (I wholeheartedly approve of that mission, because how dare they demote our boy Pluto like that). She searches everywhere for a suitable assistant, but then one finds her, except she thinks that the ship is a submarine. There is some confusion and disagreements, but then they figure out they can take turns exploring space and the sea and work together to do all their goals. 

The illustrations were colorful and fun, showing the reality with the imagination superimposed over it for most of the pages, almost like photos that were taken, and then adjusted by a kid with a crayon to show what they saw when the event was happening. It was an interesting approach and I'm not mad at it. 

I'm not sure I'd want to read this book too terribly many times, but I definitely wouldn't mind a few rereads because the lesson of taking turns is a good one. Overall I give this book 3.5 out of 5 stars. - Katie 

Amazon

Mahak Jain is a writer and editor. Her picture book Maya (Owlkids Books), illustrated by Elly MacKay, was a Kirkus Best Book of the Year, a CBC Books Best Book of the Year, and winner of the 2017 South Asia Book Award. Mahak lives in Toronto.

Andrea Stegmaier is an illustrator and architect who has worked on many children's books, including AAAlligator! (Kids Can Press) by Judith Henderson. She lives in Stuttgart, Germany.