The Spelling Talent Bee mentioned by the Safety Bears will be explored later in the story…so stay tuned!

Thalia Thistle was one of my favorite characters in the first Astronaut Academy book, but she never got her own chapter until now! She gets to play a big role in Astronaut Academy: Re-Entry, along with her Fireball teammates who we’ll learn about on the next page. The scarf on Thalia’s fireball poker was inspired by how Steven Tyler from Aerosmith always has a scarf tied around his microphone stand. Or at least that’s what I learned from the Wayne’s World sketch where Tom Hanks plays the band’s roadie. “Check. Check. Check 1. Sibilance. Sibilance. Check. Check. Check 2. Sibilance. Sibilance.”

The night this SNL sketch first aired, my cousin Dan and I thought it was the most exciting thing we had seen in our lives. Still love the nook cam!