Ready for Launch: An Astronaut's Lessons for Success on Earth by Scott Kelly
ISBN: 1524764329
Genres: Biography/Autobiography
Format: Chapter Book Nonfiction
Goodreads

Kelly draws a straight line between his experiences from a “distracted” student to Commander of the International Space Station (ISS) and their relevance in everyday life to lay out a path for “success on Earth”. The writing is accessible, engaging, and will be relatable to its target audience (publisher’s recommended audience is 12 and up).The layout (approx 5” x 7”) and brevity (113 pp). lends itself to a guidebook feel. Each lesson is covered in its own chapter. There are occasional typos (Navy is not capitalized – p. 60) and this book could have benefited from a number of elements that it lacks: index, timeline, bibliography. It feels like at times he is stretching the limits of the experience to tie it into his advice.

Kelly may be better known to adults than to the target audience, due to his well-documented #yearinspace Instagram, when he was on the ISC for 340 days, and the PBS series, A Year in Space. Clearly, Kelly is passionate about the NASA mission and what he has learned about leadership through his experiences. The stories he relates about the ISC are interesting and the advice he attributes to these experiences certainly would be valuable for young people looking for a guidebook to “success” (whatever that looks like).

Reviewed by Deanna Covino, Young School