From the Publisher
"[S]pectacular illustrations and awe-filled verse that portray and describe distant nebulae, black holes, exoplanets, and star clusters."—The Horn Book Magazine
School Library Journal
04/01/2021
Gr 1–3—This title provides a poetic trip into the universe and well beyond our solar system. The poetic language is appealing, but it's unlikely that it would be understood by the target audience—primary grade children. Older readers would also need a great deal of background information about the universe to understand the text. Lines such as "The frigid glitter of a trillion comets/ zooms in a cosmic ring./ Dwarf planets with tiny moons and atmospheres that freeze and fall/ bring action and excitement" raise more questions than they answer. The text lacks the informational components to help readers understand what is being described and illustrated. The back matter provides clarifying information, but it is unlikely to be understood by young readers. Also, it is hard to know which informative paragraph corresponds to which page. The colorful illustrations are mysterious and luminous, but could also leave readers with questions. VERDICT The artwork and the poetic language are intriguing, but this book requires much more background information than most, if not all, children possess.—Myra Zarnowski, City Univ. of New York
Kirkus Reviews
2021-03-02
Poems celebrate astronomical subjects while illustrations hint at them.
Moving from Earth’s relatively nearby neighbors to the edge of the observable universe, dreamy meanderings attempt to evoke the wonder of the cosmos. The text looks like verse but reads like prose; it would work well as narration from a dramatic planetarium guide. Some sentences slide smoothly off the tongue: “The frigid glitter of a trillion comets / zooms in a cosmic ring.” Others frustrate any attempts to find deliberate rhythm: “Dwarf planets with tiny moons and atmospheres that freeze and fall / bring action and excitement.” More abstract than realistic, illustrations combine textures, washes, dots, and curlicues in contrasting shades of white, black, and purple. The effect, though occasionally clunky, is luminous and interesting. Informative labels appear alongside poetic descriptions of stars and galaxies, giving their names and distances from Earth. Though helpful, these captions occupy colored circles that disrupt the art. It’s hard to know what to make of one confusing double-page spread that features a haphazard smattering of three stanzas and five accompanying labels. Six pages of endmatter offer facts and details about the celestial bodies that inspired the poetry, pitched at readers who understand basic astronomy but won’t be bothered by oversimplifications like “clouds that rain rubies and sapphires.” A cute section gives “our cosmic address” in a hypothetical universal postal format.
An ambitious effort—but overall a puzzler. (further information, author's note, illustrator's note, further reading, selected bibliography) (Informational picture book. 6-11)
