History Comics: The Challenger Disaster: Tragedy in the Skies

I was home from school for a snow day on January 28, 1986, and I remember watching the Challenger disaster live on television, which made quite an impression on me. This book takes a look into the people and circumstances behind that space mission and explains just went wrong. The framing sequence here is that those seven astronauts have been commemorated in the future where humanity has moved beyond Earth to colonize outer space, and a teacher has her students giving presentations about the Challenger mission. Over the course of this book the students expound on these astronauts as explorers and also for introducing the idea of civilians traveling to outer space.

What made this particular space mission notable, even before the tragedy, was the inclusion of Christa McAuliffe, a high school teacher who won the opportunity to train as a payload specialist. Of course, a focus of this book is on her but it also makes sure to give more details about the rest of the crew. It also delves into the factors that led to disaster, exploring how the space shuttle program developed its vehicles as well as what went wrong in terms of weather conditions and O-rings. I felt that this book was very informative and engaging, another strong entry in the History Comics series.

The Challenger Disaster was written and drawn by Pranas T. Naujokaitis, who has written and/or drawn several books over his career. He is also known for the mini-comic Laffy Meal. He speaks about his work on this book in this interview.

The reviews I have read about this book have been mostly positive. Sophie Brown called it "a great book that conveys a huge amount of detail without ever feeling overwhelming or dry." Kirkus Reviews summed it up as "a well-researched, idealistic tribute." In a starred review for School Library Journal, John Peters praised it for "artfully incorporating a solid payload of information within a well-developed frame story."

The Challenger Disaster was published by First Second, and they offer a preview and more information here.