The David Bowie song “Space Oddity” probably shouldn’t have been made into a children’s book: The haunting 1969 track about an astronaut who loses contact with Earth to float around the universe would probably give most kids nightmares.

That didn’t stop illustrator Andrew Kolb from turning the space-rock song into an illustrated book. As seen in the gallery above, the artist lays down Bowie’s hit about a spaceman in a “tin can” line by line. It was an odyssey Kolb said wasn’t as easy as one might imagine.

“It was one thing to make images that corresponded to the lyrics, but it was another to try to make it function as a visual story on top of that,” Kolb said in an e-mail to Wired.com. “In my early drafts it didn’t really work as a picture book, and that was my goal all along.”

Ultimately, Kolb said he had to turn a blind eye to the various deeper (and darker) meanings of Bowie’s song about a wayward astronaut named Major Tom, which the BBC used as theme music for its coverage of the Apollo moon landing.

“It’s been really cool hearing all these different interpretations of the lyrics, and all I can say is that the approach I took was the one that translated best to an image-based story,” said the Canadian graphic designer. “Either way, how could you not have fun designing spacesuits and jet packs?!”

Kolb’s pretty incredible Space Oddity book is available as a free download from the artist’s website. He said he hopes his handiwork will get enough support from the Ziggy Stardust fan base that he can find a way to publish physical copies of the book.

To experience “Space Oddity” for yourself, play the song below and flip through the pages above.