Don Brown - One Giant Leap: The Story of Neil Armstrong

One Giant Leap
THE STORY OF NEIL ARMSTRONG

Phases of the Moon
AFTER GALILEO
Don Brown

Houghton Mifflin Company Boston

Copyright 1998 by Don Brown

All rights reserved. For information about permission to
reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions,
Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South,
New York, New York 10003.

www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brown, Don.
One giant leap: the story of Neil Armstrong / written and illustrated by
Don Brown.
p. cm.
Summary: Discusses the life and accomplishments of astronaut Neil
Armstrong, from his childhood in Ohio to his famous moon landing.

RNF ISBN 0-395-88401-2 PAP ISBN 0-618-15239-3

1. Armstrong, Neil, 1930- Juvenile literature. 2. Astronauts
United StatesBiographyJuvenile literature. [1. Armstrong, Neil,
1930- . 2. Astronauts.] I. Title.

TL789.85.A1B76 1998
629.45'0092dc21
[B] 97-42152
CIP
AC

Manufactured in China
LEO 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13

To Sheahan and Corey.
They are the moon and the stars to me.

In 1932, two-year-old Neil Armstrong watched airplanes race.

Small, brightly colored planes flashed over Neil and his father, Stephen. The planes raced around a triangle-shaped course, their propellers tearing the sky with a sound that was like an endless thunderclap.

The spectacle surely left its mark on young Neil. Four years later, he leaped at the chance to ride in an airplane.

It wasn't on a racing plane but a three-motored passenger plane nicknamed the Tin Goose. The plane offered rides at the town airport. It could carry about a dozen people.

Neil and his father climbed aboard and buckled themselves into wicker seats. The engines sputtered to life with a terrific noise. The airplane raced down the runway and slowly lifted into the sky.

As the ground dropped farther and farther below them, people, houses, cars, everything looked smaller. The Tin Goose plowed through the clouds as gusts of wind bounced it up and down.

The noisy, bumpy ride and ever-tilting view worried Stephen Armstrong.

But Neil was fearless.

Neil was delighted.

Neil started making ten-cent airplane models and reading flying magazines.

He also started having a magical dream. In it, he held his breath and hovered above the ground. Below him, people, houses, cars, everything looked smaller.

As Neil grew, so did his interest in flying. Hundreds of model airplanes and stacks of Air Travel magazine began to appear in his bedroom.

A job mowing the Mission Cemetery lawn helped pay for it all.

At about the age of eleven, Neil worked for Neumeister's Bakery. Because he was small, Neil was placed into the dough-mixing vats to clean them.

He dreamed again and again of hovering

When Neil was thirteen, the Armstrongs moved into a big white house on Benton Street in Wapakoneta, Ohio. Neil had been born in the living room of his grandparents' nearby farm on August 5, 1930.

Neil was shy and made friends carefully. Still, his life was busy. There was school and Boy Scouts. He played baritone horn in the school band and in a group called the Mississippi Moonshiners.

He flew rubber-band powered airplanes from a grassy hill.

He worked at the West End Market and Bowsher's Hardware, and he swept up and stocked shelves at Rhine and Brading's Pharmacy on Main Street.

On clear nights, Neil climbed to the roof of his neighbor Jacob Zint's garage. Mr. Zint had a homemade telescope mounted there and welcomed visitors to spy the moon and stars.

Neil looked and looked and looked.

A few miles from the Armstrongs' home, down the old brewery road, was the Port Koneta airport. Neil went there to watch the planes take off and land. Sometimes people paid him to wash their planes.

But watching and washing were not enough. Neil asked his parents if he could learn to fly. The lessons cost nine dollars an hour. He would have to work twenty-five hours to earn enough for one hour of flying.

His parents agreed.

Soon afterward, Neil squeezed himself into a tiny Aeronca Champion airplane with his teacher, Aubrey Knudegard.

He learned to take off and land.

He learned to climb and swoop and bank.

He learned to follow a figure-eight path in the sky.

He learned that a pilot and an airplane together could be more than the person or the machine was alone.