A mix of astronomical photos and splashy, spread-filling painted star fields illustrate this double-stranded account of the universe’s likely origin. DeCristofano alternates informal explanations with lines of an alphabetical poem, taking our universe from “An astronomical Big Bang / Changed the crunched-up universe, causing the current cosmos” to “Yet the universe remains zipped up. / Will it ever reveal its ways?” Simplifying basic concepts—describing the formation of matter, for instance, but not of space and time along with it—she chronicles each stage of the Big Bang, goes on to a quick history of observational astronomy, and the discovery that the universe is expanding, and then closes with the optimistic thought that we just might unzip those ways, one day. An energetic, animated alternative to Seymour Simon’s more matter-of-fact Universe (2000). (Nonfiction. 6-8)
