Carl L. Chappell

This was the first book-length biograph of Gus Grissom released after the Apollo 1 fire in 1967. It is not the most successful biography of Gus ever written. The author includes a lot of filler, recounting events that had little to nothing to do with Grissom's life. The book does discuss the fire and aftermath in detail, unfortunately a lot of that detail is word for word taken from the Apollo 204 report. In fact, the author borrows frequently from other texts through the book, most of them being NASA publications. There were technical errors throughout the book, and also the annoying misspelling of astronaut Jim Lovell's name every time it appears. All in all, it seems hastily written leans too heavily on other works. The author apparently knew Gus' parents pretty well, so you can tell he was enthusiastic to tell Gus' story for their sake.… (meer)

I had never seen any of the books in the Childhood of Famous Americans book series until this title came across the circulation desk one day. I decided to check it out because of my interest in Grissom. Most of the book follows Grissom on little adventures during his childhood. I highly doubt if any of this really happened. The first 2/3 of the book seem very innocent and stylized in a very 1950's way. The last third of the book is much more biographical as it follows Grissom's military career. This wouldn't be useful as biographical material, so I would recommend this to a kid looking for book report material. The illustrations in the book are cute. This would be a good choice if you had young readers interested in astronauts or the early space race.… (meer)