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TUCSON - Retired astronaut Mark Kelly was on CNN's "Starting Point" with Soledad O'Brien this morning to talk about his new children's book "Mousetronaut," based on his very first trip to space in the space shuttle, as well as the recovery of his wife, former Tucson congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Below is an excerpt from the CNN.com article:

Kelly says his inspiration for his children's book "Mousetronaut" came from his first shuttle flight on Endeavour in 2001.

"We had 18 mice on board. Of those 18 mice, 17 of them stayed kind of latched on to the inside of their cages. They were very nervous about being in space. But one little guy seemed to get it, enjoyed weightlessness, would go over and get his water and his food. We enjoyed watching him a little bit and that was impetuous to this story," Kelly says.

He found the inspiration to write the book to inspire kids to learn. "I think it's important to have material for young kids to be interested in, and my experience has been that kids are interested in astronauts and space and they are also interested in animals. So I put the two there together and hopefully, they will be interested in this book," Kelly says.

Kelly says his wife Gabby is doing well and is continuing her recovery.

"She continues to work on that physical therapy and her right arm doesn't work at all, it's paralyzed," Kelly says. "Speaking is still something that she works on every single day with speech - almost every day with speech therapy. We recently moved back to Tucson and that's great for her to get home. She's continuing to improve."

"If she continues to get better, she will have the opportunity to go back to work," Kelly adds.