One Giant Leap: The First Moon Landing Book

I picked this one up in my meanderings through past Newbery Award and Newbery Honor winners. I'm beginning to think that the main criteria for Newbery's is that they include children dealing with some difficult emotional trauma. This one has three children who have recently lost their mother in a car accident. It is very well-written. I was impressed with the writing to begin with and thought it had hope as a story. I feel that the story fell flat and the struggles of the children in the family were somewhat irritating to me. I felt the two youngest children behaved as I felt they would in the circumstances, the oldest child and the remaining parent were frustrating and, in my opinion, responsible for the disfunctionality of the family. The book ends in a much better place but only after a rather disjointed and often unrelated story in between. The highlight of the book for me was the author's description of the Welsh countryside. I really got a feel for the wild, sometimes desolate, unpredictable landscape and the independence of this small but very old country.