YOUNIVERSE

A meditation on the cosmic unities within and beyond each reader.

Using scientific concepts but in ways more likely to elicit incomprehension, van der Merwe first takes readers from the infinite “universe” to the more personal “youniverse” and then in stages to photons…which weave together with atoms to create the molecules that make up everything on Earth…which is a member of “our town,” the solar system…which is zooming along in the Milky Way through space, which has “many, many, many, many gazillions of atoms.” “Space and time are laced together into a fabric called space-time,” she goes on, “which supports everything you see and everything you can’t see in its palm,” including “your extraordinary imagination” and also “another kind of consciousness in the quaking aspen, a spark we do not yet fully understand.” Readers may be excused for not fully understanding any of this—nor do the illustrations offer much enlightenment, as fuzzy clouds representing atoms give way to swirly stars and galaxies, culminating in a fuzzy, swirly human figure aglitter with stars that becomes a shadowy silhouette floating in space: “This is you, / gazing / into the / universe. / This is the / YOUNIVERSE.” Anyone seeking a sense of their place in the (physical) scheme of things will be better served by Jason Chin’s Your Place in the Universe (2020). (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A mind-boggling muddle of fuzzy imagery, mixed metaphors, and confusing leaps in scale.