Publication Date: May 26, 2026
The year is 1968, and American astronauts are making the final push toward landing on the moon. On the ground in Houston, their families devote their lives to supporting the astronauts’ dreams. But for Joanie Beckett, daughter of astronaut Walter Beckett, the dream has begun to turn sour. Behind the smiles and the cheerful interviews for the press, discord and death cast shadows over Joanie’s days. Is the moon really worth the price they’re paying to get there?
Joanie is caught between two lives—too rough-edged for the magazine cover image of the perfect astronaut family, yet too clean-cut for her friends and the boy who has caught her eye. Somewhere between everyone’s ideas and expectations is the real Joanie…but having the courage to find herself may mean leaving the world she knows behind.
Kat Helgeson is the author of young adult novels. Rise is a work of historical fiction set in 1968, when conversations and eyes were on NASA. The story is told from the perspective of high schooler Joanie. But Rise reads like an adult novel, allowing readers to see the societal pressures placed on the astronauts and their families.
Joanie’s father began his career as a test pilot, and the family lived in a tightly-knit community on Edwards Air Force Base in California. That job allowed her father to be home each day, keeping the tradition of family time. But the risks were high, and the weight of attending funerals and seeing families turned upside down was a very common occurrence.
Then her father is accepted into the space program. An early scene shows a group of teenage girls arguing that there are two kinds of astronauts: those who have flown a mission and those who are still waiting and working on the ground. Here begins the tension of new life as an “Astronaut Family”.
These families were expected to have a high level of decorum. The wives hosted many parties and voiced their pride in their husbands and the entire space program. But the men were rarely home, living at the Cape to support the astronauts chosen for the next launch and its missions. Joanie feels the unraveling of the family that she remembers as perfect in the Edwards Air Force days. She doesn’t want to play the part of a loyal astronaut daughter. Then an unexpected encounter with a female stunt pilot leads her to see things differently.
An iconic era was photographed by Life magazine, which followed the families of astronauts in the late 1960s, but Rise depicts possible strife amid those lives.
KAT HELGESON is a Chicago-based author of novels for young adults. She is a 1980’s cake walk champion and claims a career total of 2 points scored during regulation basketball, and she’s undefeated at Star Wars Trivial Pursuit. Kat’s titles have received the Junior Library Guild Award, the Bank Street College of Education Best Books of the Year Distinction, and been featured on the Illinois Reads selection list. Her work has been translated into Dutch and German.
