Friday, October 20, 2023

Today's read... Tell Me About Space by Lisa Varchol Perron

With sun eclipses gracing our area the during the next months, this read about the stars seems like a natural fit. This is a board book but seems to pack useful information for all those young space fans out there. I'm excited to see what this one is all about.



TELL ME ABOUT SPACE
by Lisa Varchol Perron
Illustrated by Jennifer Falkner
Little Simon
Board Book
22 pages
ages 3 to 6


Perfect for curious little minds, this nonfiction board book teaches young readers all about outer space through question-and-answer text!

Tell me why the sun goes down.
What happens to its light?

The sun stays put! It’s Earth that spins,
creating day and night.

Why don’t we float into space? How many moons are there? A child asks about outer space, and their grownup answers in rhyming, factual text. Little ones will love learning that the earth is constantly spinning, that Saturn isn’t the only planet with rings, and that most planets have their own moons!


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MY TIDBITS

With the calming atmosphere of a goodnight read, young star gazers are invited to explore the night sky and learn more about the universe around them.

This is a medium-sized board book, which means its sturdier than a picture book and will handle a bit of mistreatment. The illustrations follow a young boy and his mother as they watch the setting sun before getting ready for bedtime. The poetic text opens up questions surrounding Earth and the other planets, while a more informative box in the corner of each two-page spread offers the basic facts and explanations. 

While board books tend to head for the youngest readers, the information offered in this one slides toward the 4 to 7 age group, and does a wonderful job at hitting basic science in an inviting manner. The text is written in a calming, poetic flow, while presenting basic questions such as why the Earth spins although we stand still or why planets have different colors. The answers to these are placed in a text block at the bottom of the right-hand page. These are a little more in-depth than the younger end of the age group might completely understand (adult readers can easily help out), but the upper end will be have no problem with it, since these don't go too deep, either.

The illustrations are well done and add a lovely balance between the home scenes and the planets in space. Each one is enjoyable to gaze at and offers a nice foundation for the knowledge to settle in.

I do recommend this one to young space fans ages 4 and up.



And here they are...

Lisa Varchol Perron writes picture books, middle grade novels, and poetry for children. Her poems have appeared in children’s magazines, online poetry journals, and anthologies, and she earned the 2021 Boston Authors Club Discovery Award for picture book writers. She lives outside of Boston with her geologist husband and two book-loving kids.

Jennifer Falkner is a children’s book illustrator and designer based in Perth, Australia. Jennifer’s work is inspired by a passion for nature, the antics of her two small boys, and her own childhood playing and exploring the beach and the bush in Western Australia. Recently, Jennifer has illustrated The Happiness SeedThe Lucky Shack, the Flashlight Explorers series, Tell Me About Oceans, and Tell Me About Space. Before returning to Perth in 2018, Jennifer lived and worked in Canberra, Bangkok, Jakarta, and Singapore.

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