American Girl Book “Luciana: Braving the Deep” Goes to the Space Station

In the American Girl book series, Luciana Vega^™—American Girl’s 2018 Girl of the Year^™—dreams of becoming an astronaut, traveling to space, and someday becoming the first person to walk on Mars. Although Luciana hasn’t made it to Mars quite yet, one of the books from the Luciana series has gone to the International Space Station (ISSInternational Space Station)!

Watch this video of NASANational Aeronautics and Space Administration astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor reading an excerpt from Luciana: Braving the Deep from the cupolaA small module on the International Space Station with seven windows for observing and photographing Earth, spacecraft arrivals and departures, and spacewalks. of the ISS as part of the Story Time From Space program. In the book, written by Erin Teagan, Luciana attends a youth astronaut training camp, where she grows hydroponic plants (a method of growing plants without soil in a nutrient and water solution) like astronauts on the space station and scuba dives in an underwater facility like the ones where astronauts train.

The video reading of an excerpt from Luciana: Braving the Deep was produced through a partnership between American Girl, Story Time From Space, and the ISS National Lab. The video was officially unveiled last week during a downlink event in which Colorado students were able to talk live with Auñón-Chancellor onboard the ISS and ask her questions about what it’s like to live and work in space.

Hearing Luciana’s story read from an astronaut onboard the space station helps to inspire students to learn more about the ISS and space exploration and maybe even to work toward becoming an astronaut or scientist themselves!