A timely addition considering that interest in sending new probes—and people—to the red planet is ramping up.
A valedictory tip of the hat to the Opportunity rover, an “Interplanetary Detective” that far outlasted its original mission and also found telling evidence of water on Mars.
As has become usual for picture-book tributes to Mars rovers “Oppy” gets anthropomorphic features and feelings as well as feminine pronouns. Nevertheless, strenuous efforts to spare readers any confusion begin on the title page with a cautionary note about “fictionalized” content and finish off with a lengthy afterword that includes actual photos. In between, most of the light but specific informational payload is set apart from the narrative and printed in a different weight type. Having itself been finished off by a dust storm in 2018, Opportunity has since been buried beneath salutes to the currently active Curiosity. Still, as it operated for a record 14 ½ years, it does merit remembrance for longevity as well as a successful mission…and perhaps also for the five weeks it spent stuck in “Purgatory,” a sandy ripple that inspired doubtless frustrated scientists back on Earth to dub all such traps purgatoids henceforth. Slipping in the odd magnifying glass or deerstalker hat, Carter sets the wide-eyed wanderer wheeling over pink but challengingly craggy Mars-scapes. In one of the two scenes set on Earth, Oppy’s human crew includes both brown- and pale-skinned figures, one of the latter in a wheelchair. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A timely addition considering that interest in sending new probes—and people—to the red planet is ramping up. (source list) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63592-319-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
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
A close encounter of the best kind.
Left behind when the space bus departs, a child discovers that the moon isn’t as lifeless as it looks.
While the rest of the space-suited class follows the teacher like ducklings, one laggard carrying crayons and a sketchbook sits down to draw our home planet floating overhead, falls asleep, and wakes to see the bus zooming off. The bright yellow bus, the gaggle of playful field-trippers, and even the dull gray boulders strewn over the equally dull gray lunar surface have a rounded solidity suggestive of Plasticine models in Hare’s wordless but cinematic scenes…as do the rubbery, one-eyed, dull gray creatures (think: those stress-busting dolls with ears that pop out when squeezed) that emerge from the regolith. The mutual shock lasts but a moment before the lunarians eagerly grab the proffered crayons to brighten the bland gray setting with silly designs. The creatures dive into the dust when the bus swoops back down but pop up to exchange goodbye waves with the errant child, who turns out to be an olive-skinned kid with a mop of brown hair last seen drawing one of their new friends with the one crayon—gray, of course—left in the box. Body language is expressive enough in this debut outing to make a verbal narrative superfluous.
A close encounter of the best kind. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4253-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Margaret Ferguson/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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