Miss Pickerell Goes to Mars

We watched The Wasp Woman, a film from 1959, on Kanopy this week. I think Miss Pickerell Goes to Mars is the children's book-equivalent:

(1) Lots of action.
(2) Inexplicable things happen (Miss Pickerell wanders into a rocket in her pasture and the ship takes off, the crew mistakenly believing that Pickerell is a crew member they were awaiting; Pickerell is able to crochet onboard the spaceship; the ship is able to land and take off again).
(3) Post-1951 (that's the Miss Pickerell Goes to Mars copyright) knowledge of Mars makes some of the events of the story unlikely (especially the look of Mars as the crew takes a stroll on the planet).
(4) Flag-waving belief in the power of science to do incredible things.


Still, Pickerell is a strong woman character, who obeys the captain except when an emergency arises.