The 21 July 1969 was a bitterly cold day in the South Australian town of Peterborough. There a young boy waits and watches fuzzy grey images on a television when he notices soft white flakes float past the window. Snow! He rushes outside and spins feeling the snow fall on his face. His mother calls to him to come, the boy is torn – the snow! He races inside just as the astronaut descends from the lunar module and speaks those famous words. On the television he sees a barren moonscape lit in a strange light and reflected in the astronaut’s visor, and then he watches amazed as the astronaut hops like a kangaroo across the moonscape. He hears his friends outside and rushes to join them in hopping across the snow just as the astronaut had done on the moon.
Many people can remember where and what they were doing on 21 July 1969 – the day people first landed on the moon. Writing in the first person, Phil Cummings relives that memorable day which, in his case, was not just the moon landing but a day of unusual and significant snowfall in Peterborough. There were dual events that are replicated and commemorated in a drawing at the end of the book of the next day’s front-page of the local newspaper, complete with snowmen astronauts.
Coral Tulloch’s warm and softly coloured illustrations are representative of a household from fifty years ago. Crammed with everyday household items it is both an historic and nostalgic celebration of the period. In contrast are the bolder black and white images of the astronaut on the moon eerily similar to the television vision on the day.
‘Touch the Moon’ has inspired a song cycle entitled ‘Space Race’, a collaboration between Phil Cummings and composer Glyn Lehmann. It was performed by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Young Adelaide Voices in September 2019.
Picture Books for Older Readers
