booktalk Archives - Anastasia Suen

Christina Hammock Koch: Artemis Astronaut
by Carla Mooney (Author)
@ Amazon | Bookshop

Booktalk: Discover the life story of NASA astronaut Christina Hammock Koch.

Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and raised in North Carolina, Christina Hammock Koch dreamed about traveling to space since childhood. She visited NASA’s space camp throughout her high school years, which furthered her conviction. In college she studied electrical engineering and physics and then made her way to NASA as an engineer. But she wanted a more varied experience. She joined the Antarctic Research program, a challenge that expanded her horizons.

She went back to NASA as an engineer and spent time in Maryland, Greenland, and Alaska before applying to the space program in 2012. She was admitted, and in 2019 she achieved her dream of traveling to space. She made history by being part of the first all-women spacewalk. Her next goal: Going to the moon . . . and we just saw it happen!

Snippet:

The author, Carla Mooney, is one of my former students.
Copyright © 2026 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved. (*bookstore affiliate)

Road Work Ahead
by Anastasia Suen (Author) and Jannie Ho (Illustrator)

Booktalk: When a family sets out on a trip to Grandma’s, their journey proves to be more like a visit to a construction site. Sidewalks are being poured, streetlights repaired, roads resurfaced. The noise of jackhammers, whistles, and horns fills the air.

When my oldest was a toddler, he loved to look at all of the machines working along the road. I took photos and placed them in a tiny photo album for him. Then I wrote a small poem about it.

The small poem in Road Work Ahead is only 90 words long, but it took 15 years to become a picture book! Why did it take so long?

During the 15 years that this small poem waited to turn into a picture book, it was sold to a publisher #1 and soon afterwards, they were bought by publisher #2. But publisher #2 didn’t like the poem. Many revisions later, publisher #2 decided they wouldn’t publish it.

Why did the book sell to publisher #3 ten years later? I added 10 words to the original 80 word poem that the first publisher liked. Two years later, the art was completed. After 15 years, the road work was finally done! Now it’s available as an e-book.