A passable steppingstone to books that truly honor women in space.
An 8-year-old science enthusiast takes a surprise trip to the moon with her new neighbor, her cat, and her baby brother.
First in a series for transitioning independent readers, this chapter book introduces Astronaut Girl, also known as Val, a confident White girl who’s full of facts about space. While her botanist mom and physicist dad work, Val pretends to command Apollo 11. Astro Cat and the Baby aren’t the most diligent of crew members (which makes for some mild humor), but a new one soon shows up in the form of a Black boy Val’s age. Wallace has just moved in next door, and he loves the space-themed TV show Comet Jumpers. Instead of exciting Val, though, that makes her roll her eyes. When she watched Comet Jumpers, she “wasn’t impressed. The science is totally wrong,” she says. (This is pretty rich coming from someone whose Apollo history is, in fact, totally wrong: Val tells Wallace that “a problem with the ship’s computer” almost stopped Apollo 11 from landing on the moon, but in fact, the ship’s computer prevented a problem. The computer was the reason Apollo 11 was able to land, thanks to work led by real-life space heroine Margaret Hamilton.) Wallace doesn’t let Val shout him down, and she grows to respect his knowledge in their ensuing space adventure. Purple-toned illustrations are simplistic but energetic.
A passable steppingstone to books that truly honor women in space. (Fiction. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-09571-3
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An introduction to Venus that shows the planet at her most verbally and visually vivacious.
The solar system’s hottest diva struts her stuff.
The titular character’s claim that she’s the only goddess among the planetary gods may leave partisans of “Gaea” (technically not an official name, but still) feeling a little miffed. That aside, Venus still has plenty to crow about—from having higher surface temperatures than Mercury, to sporting a day that’s longer than her year, to spinning so the sun comes up in the west. Joining McAnulty’s other solar system soliloquies with the same engaging mix of facts and attitude (“Earth has clouds. I don’t…just have clouds. I’m smothered in them!”), Venus shines up from the page. She sports a proud expression on her broad face, whether hovering with windswept golden locks over a seashell like her Botticellian counterpart or floating in space, waving to her earthly and celestial fans with stubby limbs. Closing with a review quiz and a roundup of basic statistics, this animated planetary self-portrait will give young readers more reason than ever to pay proper attention to the brightest of our non-stellar astronomical neighbors.
An introduction to Venus that shows the planet at her most verbally and visually vivacious. (bibliography) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781250334473
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Odd Dot
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
“It’s time to head back home,” the narrator concludes. “You’ve touched the Earth in so many ways.” Who knew it would be so...
A pro bono Twinkie of a book invites readers to fly off in a magic plane to bring clean water to our planet’s oceans, deserts, and brown children.
Following a confusingly phrased suggestion beneath a soft-focus world map to “touch the Earth. Now touch where you live,” a shake of the volume transforms it into a plane with eyes and feathered wings that flies with the press of a flat, gray “button” painted onto the page. Pressing like buttons along the journey releases a gush of fresh water from the ground—and later, illogically, provides a filtration device that changes water “from yucky to clean”—for thirsty groups of smiling, brown-skinned people. At other stops, a tap on the button will “help irrigate the desert,” and touching floating bottles and other debris in the ocean supposedly makes it all disappear so the fish can return. The 20 children Coh places on a globe toward the end are varied of skin tone, but three of the four young saviors she plants in the flier’s cockpit as audience stand-ins are white. The closing poem isn’t so openly parochial, though it seldom rises above vague feel-good sentiments: “Love the Earth, the moon and sun. / All the children can be one.”
“It’s time to head back home,” the narrator concludes. “You’ve touched the Earth in so many ways.” Who knew it would be so easy to clean the place up and give everyone a drink? (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: April 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5107-2083-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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