I discovered the first two books at our local library, and considering how much we enjoyed reading the saga of Binky the Space Cat by Ashley Spires, I thought this might be another hit with our girls.

CatStronauts Series by Drew Brockington - Goodreads

Captain the ship alone or with friends as a team of 2-4 and become the crew of a spaceship that must hold together in the face of enemy fire - teamwork is essential for success! I loved following the race in space and I loved seeing what all the cats did. From science experiments (dancing fish which we also got to see between the chapters) and figuring out how everything works. This was an adorable surprise. My son and I read this together at night before bed over a few nights. I thoroughly enjoyed it and so did he! He's now zooming through the other books. Neither the story nor the illustrations get bogged down in technical info about space travel or science, it stays within the interest-level, reading level, and scientific framing that will most likely make readers in 2nd-4th grade feel comfortable.In the fifth book in the CatStronauts graphic novel series, Pom Pom pushes her experiments to the limit on the International Space Station, while the cats at Mission Control take a much needed break. What could possibly go wrong? IN this book we continue the story of the last book, we see how our Catstronauts are having all the parties, all the foods, all the awards, and more. And that people, sorry cats, are jealous of that! Oh yes. And so a fight to Mars comes to the idea and I loved it! OK, I didn’t love those two cats that much (attitude and mean) but I did love the idea of going to Mars. Those award ceremonies got pretty dang boring ya know (and apparently not just for me but for our cats as well). When the world is thrust into darkness due to a global energy shortage, the Worlds Best Scientist comes up with a bold plan to set up a solar power plant on the moon. But someone has to go up there to set it up, and t... The first two books were released apparently simultaneously, and the third book is expected to be published by Halloween this year. So either the author had a number of stories created and ready for publication or he is an incredibly fast artist. When chief science officer Pom Pom rejoins the CatStronauts on the International Space Station, sh...

CatStronauts: Slapdash Science (CatStronauts, 5) by Drew

Read with my 2-year old son. Rough start, but strong finish! He's asked to read the third one, so we'll see how that goes! Yogi and Uma from COOKIE have just finished the module for the new space garden on the intenational space station. The CatStronauts are going to install it while performing some maintenance on the space station. Their project goes haywire when Pom Pom takes on too many experiments. The space garden becomes overcome with weeds. Trying to fix it leads to another even worse problem that is life threatening to the CatStronauts. But around the world, other cat space programs are watching–in particular the CosmoCats, the first cats to go to space! With national pride and scientific research on the line, the world’s space programs rush to be the first cats to Mars, and the CatStronauts are starting months behind! Can they catch up and prove their first mission was no fluke?Some aspects young readers may like: The four teams have cute names, the cats are mostly gender-neutral, the cats come in all colors & stripes, the colors are muted but the feeling is light and crisp - which effectively mirrors the matter-of-fact tone that goes with the science focus of the story. Emerson wanted me to read this because he wanted me to get his jokes. I like the story of this one better than the Moon book - there's more of a sense of tension and overall plot. In the end, though, this turned out to be a story about learning to work together. The supposed villains really weren’t.I loved seeing Pom Pom and Gemelli bonding over their shared love of science, and it was kind of nice to see that even the oh-so-serious Major Meowser wasn’t infallible. I was also glad that Cat-Stro-Bot got to have a role in this story too, although its part in the story became a little chaotic and confusing near the end. Book Genre: Childrens, Comics, Fiction, Graphic Novels, Humor, Middle Grade, Science Fiction, Sequential Art This straightforward story focuses on the team of Cat-Astronauts touring the cat community accepting awards and speaking about science based on the celebrity gained from their successful mission to the Moon. They are starting to get bored and the book effectively communicates boredom through their squabbling, conversations about food, etc., but soon enough the action quadruples with the announcement of a competition to reach Mars.