Star Stories: Constellation Tales From Around the World

by Anita Ganeri, Andy Wilx (Illustrator)

Overview

Share the wonder of the stars with this delightful storybook collection featuring constellation myths from around the world.

For thousands of years people have looked up to the night sky and told stories about the stars. These epic tales tell of vengeful gods and goddesses, of monsters and heroes. Others try to make sense of the natural world, or unravel the mysterious forces of the universe. This stunning book brings together 23 of these legends from all over the world: from Ancient Greece to North America, Egypt, China, India, and the South Pacific. Written by award-winning author Anita Ganeri and with beautifully detailed artwork by illustrator Andy Wilx, this is a magical book to be treasured for generations to come.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780762495054
Publisher:	Running Press Book Publishers
Publication date:	07/02/2019
Pages:	96
Sales rank:	321,862
Product dimensions:	9.70(w) x 10.70(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	7 - 12 Years

About the Author

Anita Ganeri is an award-winning author, having won the Geographical Association Silver Award and the Blue Peter Award for the Best Book with Facts. She lives in West Yorkshire, England.

Andy Wilx is an artist, designer, and illustrator. Drawing inspiration from the patterns he sees in the natural world and his use of silver and gold, gives Andy a unique artwork style that crosses William Morris with illuminated manuscripts. He lives in London, England.

Editorial Reviews

04/08/2019

The magic in these stories shines through despite a stolid narrative style and editorial selections skewed toward well-known Greek tales, including standard retellings of the myths of Andromeda, Heracles, and Pegasus. Beyond those, readers will encounter an Anishinaabe tale of a bold fisher who broadens a hole in the sky to let summer into a world of perpetual winter, a Navajo telling of a trickster coyote who scattered stars across the sky, Incan llamas seeking celestial high ground, and a Tongan myth of a girl and her parents who, in seeking a lost pet shark, are turned into the three stars in the belt of Orion. The stars sprinkled across the pages and Wilx’s detailed folkloric illustrations are accented with dull gold, adding some extra sidereal luster. Ages 7–12. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Glossy paper, a large format and golden stars scattered throughout make Star Stories an especially evocative gift for young star explorers.—Melinda Greenblatt, Shelf Awareness for Readers

From the Publisher

2019-04-10
A collection of international stories about the stars, retold by veteran children's author Ganeri.

In this unusual compendium, Ganeri gathers traditional stories about the cosmos from across six continents. Unlike other star-lore collections that focus solely on ancient Greek folklore and nomenclature, Ganeri features tales from Inuit, Incan, Maori, Sumerian, and other societies, occasionally highlighting the names of constellations as they are known from that culture's perspective. Each story is introduced by a brief contextualizing paragraph and is accompanied by illustrations from multidisciplinary artist Wilx, whose work employs bold outlines and rich colors. Laudable in its scope, the collection reminds young readers that the stars were not only observed from a Western vantage—for example, the three stars that ancient Greeks saw as Orion's Belt are known to Tongans as "Alotulu, ‘three in a boat,' " and Orion himself was known as Osiris to ancient Egyptians. However, Ganeri's narrative style fails to captivate over the 23 tales, and there are no appendices on further reading and reference materials. Many Indigenous oral traditions place high significance on the storyteller's sources and ability to contextualize tales; these aspects are notably absent.

Like a meteor shower on an overcast night, this book's dazzling premise is ultimately obscured by a few fatal flaws. (Folktales. 6-11)

Kirkus Reviews