Stardust from space

This large-format picture book uses the idea of stardust to introduce the sun, comets, asteroids, meteorites, the Earth, the moon, and the formation of the planets. Beginning with the relatively familiar sight of the starry sky, the illustrations include the artist's conception of scenes in space, such as a swirling gas cloud during the solar system's formation and a section of the asteroid belt. Each double-page spread features a large, handsome watercolor painting of a space object, accompanied by a few short paragraphs of text. For example, the spread entitled Meteorites: uninvited guests  explains how often meteorites land on Earth and shows a large one making a dramatic impact. The text doesn't refer to Pluto, though the appended glossary's entry for Planet mentions that it is sometimes classed as a planet, but it is more correct to class it as a Kuiper Belt object. Published in association with London's Natural History Museum, this clearly written book offers children a taste of space science without an overload of facts.--Phelan, Carolyn Copyright 2007 Booklist

Gr 2-3-Set against full-bleed illustrations, an astronomer's explanation of how suns and solar systems form from dust should effectively turn young readers toward a more cosmic outlook. Grady discusses in turn the formation of the Sun, the planets, comets ("dirty snowballs") and asteroids, meteors, the Earth ("a ball of squashed stardust"), and the Moon. She concludes by noting that a sun's death frees up dust for the next stellar generation, then closes with a glossary that adds some additional astronomical information. DeLeiris's paintings range from impressionistic scenes of swirling dust clouds and stellar explosions to a group portrait of specimen meteorites. The writing helps to compensate for the rather stodgy art, and in company with April Pulley Sayre's The Stars Beneath Your Bed: The Surprising Story of Dust (HarperCollins, 2005) will fit neatly into primary-level introductions to astronomy.-John Peters, New York Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.