As part of the Ukraine Speaks English initiative by the NGO Smart Education, Bruce Callow organized meetings for children where he talked about the activities of the US Government Agency, space missions, the lives of astronauts, science, and more.
After completing the project, Callow invited teenagers to join in writing their own original novels about the colonization of Mars.
The first book, "Red Genesis," was written by Vladyslav Andrukhiv (an eighth-grade student) and Ilya Garbazhiy-Romanchenko (a senior year student) from Odessa. The book can be read here and listened to here.
"The topic for the book was suggested by either Bruce or Vlad, I don't remember exactly. Interestingly, at first, I thought we were going to write a documentary about the first manned mission to Mars, and then I remembered that there hadn't been one yet - so we'll be writing science fiction," explains Ilya Garbazhiy-Romanchenko.
The second book is titled "Red Horizon Odyssey" and is authored by Illia Zhupanov (a ninth-grade student) from Kyiv. The book can be read here and listened to here.
"The main challenge was my attempts to write dialogues at the beginning of the book creation process, but later I 'got into' the role of my characters and began to imagine how they would react to certain situations," says the book's author.
Bruce Callow is a Canadian science communicator and expert who consults on astronaut communication for NASA astronaut Dr. Franklin Chang Diaz, who has completed seven spaceflights. Additionally, he is an author, educator, and dedicated helper to Ukrainians since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
