Miss Pickerell is a spinster who lives alone on a small, isolated farm with her pet cow and her prize rock collection. What better thing to read than a novella (19,430 words, I counted them) written for children, wherein the main character has a pet cow and we are treated to some gentle science lessons? She holds her own in the book and does end up being a positive contributing member to the mission.Īfter Sylvia Plath, I needed something that wouldn't tax my emotions. The book does stick to the basics: food and beverages in tubes, no atmosphere in space, physical differences between Mars and Earth, elliptical orbits and maneuvering between them and using gravity to your advantage.Īlthough Miss Pickerell doesn't have the sort of training as the men she ends up flying to Mars with, she does have the sense to listen to them and the smarts to adapt. It accomplishes this mostly by avoiding discussion of how the equipment works and by the sheer brevity of the work (only 124 pages). She accidentally replaces the last astronaut, a man who is great at astrophysics but lousy at remembering day to day things like addresses.ĭespite the goofy set up, the novel ends up being 'harder' science fiction than the two similarly aged Tintin adventures: Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon.

Unfortunately for the mission, she has actually been on vacation visiting her niece and nephew and has just returned in time for the launch.

Her apparently abandoned farm is chosen as the perfect place for a covert government launch. Now as the title implies, Miss Pickerell is the one going to Mars, not the Martians coming to her farm. Her pose and the general set up of the cover reminds me of one of my favorite Backyardigans episodes 'Ranch Hands from Outer Space.' With that tenuous connection I chose the book to read. The cover here shows a typical mid-west farm woman standing gobsmacked before a 1950s style rocket ship. Buttonhouse I was drawn to the book by Paul Galdone's cover illustration. The other one is her delightful picture book Mr. Miss Pickerell Goes to Mars is the first of the Miss Pickerell series of books and the second Ellen MacGregor book I've read.

Miss pickerell goes to mars