Bleep and Booster Annual (1966)

 

Bleep and Booster was a beloved children's animated sci-fi series featured on the BBC's Blue Peter from 1963 to 1977. For 1966-1968 there was a yearly annual album with adventures of the duo. I love space art in general and feel that images of children exploring space are important in helping them imagine people (and themselves) in space and the possibilities. These adventures are seen through a British eye since England did not have a manned space program. Instead "plucky" children  were taken to the Moon and planets by friendly aliens. But children could see images of "themselves" doing space walks, exploring alien planets, and observing manned capsules of the Americans.

Timym, William. Bleep and Booster Annual. London: Purnell and Sons, Ltd. (77 p.) 1966.

Die Mondexpedition (1966)

 

Die Mondexpedition is the original  German book that was translated into English in 1969 as The Log of a Moon Expedition. It's full title at the time was Die Mondexpedition: 14 Mal 24 Stunden auf dem Mond roughly translated as The Lunar Expedition: 14 times on the moon for 24 hours. Which I simplify as "The Lunar Expedition: 14 days on the Moon."

The author and illustration was Ludek Pesek, a well known space artist. See his Wikipedia article here.

He illustrated space and planetary themes in books and National Geographic illustrations since 1963. This was his first science fiction novel which he chose to illustrate with lush paintings of an expedition to the Moon. I blogged about the English language copy of this book in 2009.

If you have not seen these before I am happy to show you some wonderful art you might have missed.

Pesek, Ludek. Illustrated by Pesek, Ludek. Die Mondexpedition: 14 Mal 24 Stunden auf dem Mond . Recklinghausen: Paulus Verlag. (126 p.) 

My Weekly Reader and Gemini (1965,1966)

 

As I got through boxes I found a couple of My Weekly Readers that I had not shared before. My Weekly Reader posts seem to be popular for their nostalgia effect and because as ephemera no one saved them from their youth.

These particular ones are about the Gemini missions. At the time in elementary school many children saw these as their "space news" since the adult papers were not written at a basic level. So even if these are short articles they bring back a time when America was headed for the moon.

Don't you wish you had lived in this neighborhood?

Pretty fun to see someone's answers to the quiz. How did you do?

Gumby and Pokey Coloring Book (1966)

 

Since part of this blog is reliving the joys of my childhood I need to talk about Gumby and Pokey. Gumby was a television show for children that ran (at least for me) from 1955-1969 (Gumby returned to television in 1988 for another 100 episodes.) It was stop-motion animated adventures of two figures made of "clay." It was a highlight of my youth because of its emphasis on imagination. There would be all kinds of adventures but my favorite were when they would go inside books to experience the books adventures. I was an early and avid reader so this was an exciting idea to me. So when Gumby and Pokey had space flight adventures I was captivated. So these drawings from the coloring book are pretty primitive but still bring back some great memories.

Gumby on the Moon -https://youtu.be/eJDJ1ALa9Eo

Gumby-Moon Trip (1956)- https://youtu.be/wt87rvCPViQ

Gumby and Pokey Coloring Book (Whitman #1141). Drawings by Ben Greenberg. Whitman Press. 1966.

Moon Fleet Log Book (1966)

 

The Moon Fleet Log Book was a book distributed by Wall's Ice Cream to collect space cards that came with the ice cream. There were spaces for 24 cards. This book was incomplete but still worth sharing with you.