Matthew Looney's Invasion of the Earth
Jerome Beatty
Hardcover
(Harpercollins Childrens Books, June 1, 1965)
Jerome Beatty Jr began this series in the early 1960s, at the dawn of the Space Age, when 20th-century children were especially fascinated by the likelihood of space missions and adventures to the Moon in their own lifetimes. The NASA Apollo Program figures into the stories as well. For example, in one episode, Matthew witnesses the Earthlings' first feeble attempts to "explore" the Moon. Beatty uses Matthew Looney's curiosity about the Earth and his desire to embark on voyages of discovery as a literary device. His readers identify with Matthew Looney because of their own yearning for adventure and fascination with space exploration. Kids in the 1960s, growing up in a time when human beings were first exploring space, would see themselves in the young Moon-boy who was growing up in his own era of early space exploration.