A wild fantasy guaranteed to appeal to the aspiring young space traveler and any young person who yearns to be free of the limitations of being a kid. Thirteen-year-old Scott has learned to fly from his Air Force father but frustatingly, he's not old enough to get a pilot's license. When he pulls off an emergency landing after his father is knocked unconscious in an accident, it draws the attention of NASA brass. Will is recruited to attend astronaut school and participate in a secret test lunar landing to precede Apollo 11. (He's recruited because of his apparent flight smarts and he can fit better inside the Caliban 11 rocket than a full-sized man.) Despite some obvious weak points--Will's mother is told he's participating in an exchange program in Scotland and she falls for it. And NASA recruiting kids? As if!--it's a great trip of a read, made all the more convincing by the author's research and command of flight technology. ( )

Author of the Children of the Lamp series, Kerr tackles the Space Race of the 1960's in this one. Scott's dad is an Air Force pilot who teaches others to fly the top jets and trains astronauts. His mother hates flying and the war in Vietnam, and so Scott's parents separate -- he tries living with her in Florida, but ends up happily living with his dad just outside of Houston. Scott turns out to be a gifted pilot, and his dad teaches him to fly not only the prop plane they own, but also secretly takes him up for lessons in the military jet training plane. After a bird strike on their plane which leaves his dad bloody and unconscious, Scott manages to land the jet back at the base, and this brings him to the attention of Dr. Werner von Braun and the group running the Apollo space flights. There's a secret test program, set up to try out the space flights with living creatures before the actual Moon landing, and one of the chimps involved has become violent and unmanageable. Since the test vehicles are half the size of the manned versions which will go up later, they need a smaller pilot to go with the other two chimps. And so Scott is secretly trained to be the astronaut pilot on the first mission to the moon! This is a perfect example of the idea of "willing suspension of disbelief" -- you'd love to think this stuff could really happen! Some mild language and discussions of *ahem* how to poop in space... Fun and inventive, and a good "guy" story. Great for anyone interested in space, for 6th grade and up. ( )

I can only give the highest of praises to this outstanding young adult adventure book that could only be destined for a movie and possible Newberry Award. This incredible story packs it in with nonstop riveting pages not allowing the reader to put it down for one second. The reader will experience the whole gambit of action, adventure, science, faith, trust, love, friendship, betrayal, humor, sadness, life, and death. I found myself cheering, frightened, laughing, crying. Our young hero Scott Macleod, a feisty 13 year old flying spitfire, is one hell of a kid and fearless hero you will simply never forget. To get into any description of what the story entails, I believe will totally ruin it for others so I think readers should trust and have faith that this is Kerr's best yet and one should just up and go buy it! The author's Children of the Lamp books are good, and his adult books are too, but this is just the best yet! I cant see how any reader of any age would find disappointment in this novel for boys and men ages 10-100. When I turned the last page I felt like standing up and clapping. ( )

Given the shadow the Apollo Programme casts over the history of the twentieth century, it's surprising there isn't more fiction set in and about it. There's certainly plenty about space travel, but that's science fiction, inasmuch as it supposes technologies and sciences which do not exist, such as faster-than-light drives. But they're the subject of my other blog here.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut, an I very much doubt I was alone in that. It was never a likely prospect - I'm not American, for one thing. In PB Kerr's One Small Step, thirteen-year-old Scott MacLeod wants to be an astronaut when he grows up, but he gets to be one while he's still a kid. PB Kerr is better known as Philip Kerr, the author of the excellent Bernie Gunther novels, as well as a number of others. As PB Kerr, he writes YA fiction - this novel, and the Children of the Lamp series.

One Small Step opens with Scott's parents separated, his mother in Florida, and his father a serving USAF officer in Texas. After an incident at school, Scott goes to live with his father. And every Sunday, Scott's father gives his son flying lessons at the nearby Air Force base. On a flight in a T-37 trainer jet, a bird strike shatters the canopy and knocks out Scott's father. So he lands the plane on his own.

For the rest of the review see http://spacebookspace.blogspot.com/2009/09/one-small-step-pb-kerr.html ( )

Reviewed by Sarah Bean the Green Bean Teen Queen for TeensReadToo.com

Scott MacLeod is about to become the youngest astronaut in NASA, only no one is supposed to know about it. His mission is a secret one that not even NASA will talk about or the other astronauts know about.

It all started when Scott's dad, who is an Air Force pilot, started teaching Scott to fly. Scott is only twelve, so when he is able to crash land an Air Force plane, one he shouldn't have even known how to fly, NASA takes notice.

NASA is trying to land a man on the moon, but many things could go wrong and there are still lots of questions that need to be answered before that ambition can really take off. So, before the real astronauts left on the Apollo missions, NASA had been sending secret test missions into space. These missions, which used chimps as astronauts, were called Caliban.

When the chimp pilot for the latest Caliban mission goes crazy, NASA recruits Scott to fly the shuttle. The shuttles are made smaller, so who better to pilot them than a twelve-year-old boy? But, NASA has secrets about the training of the chimps and Scott isn't sure he can go along with the mission as planned.

Several times during the reading of this book, I had to remind myself that this was fiction and not a true story. There is a lot of adventure, from Scott's Air Force flying to the space program. There is a lot of technical jargon as well, dealing with Scott's training and then his mission in space, which might turn off some readers. If you're a fan of space exploration this book provides an interesting perspective on the 1960's space race. ( )