Read alouds for astronomy and/or space exploration?

[kirstenhill]

My kids really liked the style of the text for Ellen McHenry's The Elements as well as the book "The Mystery of the Periodic Table."  Does anyone have any suggestions along those lines for astronomy and/or space exploration? 

 

I am wanting something longer (multiple chapters in length) rather than a bunch of short picture books, and I don't want something really "busy" like DK/Eyewitness books style.  I'm not really looking for a fictional story with science elements.   My primary audience is my two older kids (3rd grade and 6th grade in the fall, but the 3rd grader is pretty advanced in terms of science and should be able to follow most of what my 6th grader could follow).   

 

I'm familiar with the Tiner books - we have done two of those on other topics and they are "ok" - but my kids didn't like the style of those quite as much as the two Chemistry books I mentioned.  The style of those is pretty lively and we found Tiner a bit dry in comparison. I know my kids would also really like a lively read aloud about space exploration even more than they would enjoy just astronomy.

 

Any suggestions?

[frugalmamatx]

No Ideas, but I am following as we'll be doing Astronomy this fall as well.

[sdobis]

To Space and Back by Sally Ride might be nice.

[Farrar]

George's Secret Key and the sequels would seem to fit. The science in there can get pretty technical, but the story format is pretty simple so it's an appealing package.

[PeachyDoodle]

We're reading A Really Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson right now. Kids are loving it. It's easy to break down into shorter segments; each "chapter" is about two pages, and we usually cover about 10 pages at a time.