After finishing the last book I was reading, and with the library still closed, I went into my "Unread" shelves in my office. I came across this book, which I've had for almost twenty-five years. In collage, I kept this face out on a shelf of treasured things, because of obvious reasons. I figured it was about time to read it.
by Eleanor Cameron
(Little Brown, 1954)
David and Chuck's adventure all begins with a mysterious ad printed in green that appeared in the newspaper. "WANTED: A small spaceship about two and half metres built by a boy, or by two boys, between the ages of eight and eleven...". The continues, asking the boys to bring the ship as soon as possible to an address that doesn't seem to exist.
Being a grown-up, David's father is convinced it is a joke, but being a boy of the ages described in the paper, and being completely interested in space, David is convinced it's real.
Enlisting the help of his best friend Chuck, the two boys gather scraps and proceed to build a spaceship with remarkable ease, almost as if something is guiding them.
And that address that doesn't exist...turns it does, and when the two boys deliver their ship to the strange little man who lives there, they discover that their adventure is just beginning.
Though very much a story of it's time, this piece of 50s nostalgia holds up as a well structured story about the power of childhood belief.
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