Have Space Suit - Will Travel

This is the first of Heinlein's juvenile series that I've read. It's obvious from the writing that this book was intended for children. It was quite enjoyable to this old geezer nevertheless. I've read a couple of other children's science fiction books that are highly regarded - A Wrinkle in Time and The Giver. Have Space Suit-Will Travel is far superior to either one of them.

Kip wins a used space suit in a contest and his refurbishing of it seems technologically authentic. When he walks out in the back yard to test it, he is abducted by aliens. That seemed a bit over the top, but even that is rationalized in the end. Another thing that bothered me a little was that when Kip and Peewee, another abductee, finally escaped from the evil aliens and returned to Earth, near the end of the book, Kip didn't try to contact his parents right away. But these are minor quibbles.

After having adventures trying to escape from the 'worm face' aliens on the moon and on Pluto, our young heroes learn they are about to go to a planet in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud. I thought, "Aha! Tralfamadore!" And then I realized, no, that's Vonnegut, not Heinlein. ;-)

One thing that I really liked about this book is the hard science. Did kids in the fifties digest this stuff? Somehow I think schoolkids today wouldn't have a clue.

References to the appearance of the Milky Way are from a bygone era. I've always lived in cities with lots of light pollution, so I've only seen it few times in my life, and never the M31 galaxy, the so-called Andromeda Nebula. I'd bet that the great majority of Americans have never seen the Milky Way.