My to-read list is way too long, and I have yet to find time to read Leonard Nimoy's two autobiographies, I Am Not Spock and I Am Spock. When I saw this children's book in the library, I snatched it up, figuring it could serve as a quick introduction and tide me over until I get around to the autobiographies.
It's a decent book, but I'm not sure who the intended audience is. On the one hand, it's a picture book, but I'm afraid I didn't find the illustrations very compelling. They did a great job portraying the content of the book, but they just seemed sad to me. All the illustrations were colored in muted tones, and it looks like many of them were depicting night-time scenes, to fit with the "Reach for the Stars" theme. That darkness - despite the peppering of stars - conveyed a sense of loneliness to me. I do, though, have to give credit to the illustrator for very effectively rendering human likeness; before reading the text on one page, I looked at the accompanying drawing and immediately thought, "What's John F. Kennedy doing here?" - and lo and behold, Leonard Nimoy did indeed have an interaction with John F. Kennedy!
On the other hand, the reading level seemed more appropriate for middle elementary grades. I can see elementary students reading this book on their own, but then I was bothered that the book assumed a certain amount of broad knowledge. For example, the book references "jump shot" and "soda jerk" without any context whatsoever for young readers to figure out what those phrases mean. Maybe it's just meant to be read aloud by older, more knowledgable readers.
I did like the book, and was happy to learn more about how the Vulcan hand greeting was inspired by a Jewish hand gesture - something I was only vaguely aware of before. Also, it was fun to see that Leonard Nimoy's Boston in 1949 included a few places still quite familiar to modern-day Bostonians.
But then - suddenly! - the book was over. It was such an abrupt ending.
The last four pages consists of two afterwords. The first provides more information about Leonard Nimoy's work and accomplishments, and the second was an Author's Note describing the author's personal relationship with Leonard Nimoy. Clearly the story was meant to bring the reader from Leonard Nimoy's childhood to his success with Star Trek, but I think the content of those last 2 sections were just as informative and interesting as the main body of the book.
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