Moonshot by Brian Floca (or Why the Moon Landing Makes Me Sad)

"High above
there is the Moon,
cold and quiet,
no air, no life,
but glowing in the sky."

- Brian Floca, Moonshot

This morning I read my son "Moonshot" by Brian Floca and I found myself strangely choked up by it. It's not the first time I've gotten emotional over a children's book, but usually it's because of something like Robert Munsch's "Love You Forever" or creepy-ass-looking Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree" - you know, really sappy, heavy-handed stuff that manipulates you into the feels. But "Moonshot" hit me in a different place, a primordial, instinctive place that was stirred by the inexorable and resourceful power of the human spirit. Or maybe I was just really tired, since my son had awakened me up at quarter past five.