A rare chance to shine for the former ninth planet.
Is it a planet? A dwarf planet? What’s up with that mysterious body that, even in our best telescopes, floats tantalizingly at the edge of visibility?
Pairing a lighthearted narrative in a hand-lettered–style typeface with informally drawn cartoon illustrations, this lively tale of astronomical revelations begins with the search for “Planet X.” It then sweeps past Pluto’s first sighting by Clyde Tombaugh and its naming by 11-year-old Venetia Burney to the later discovery of more icy worlds—both in our solar system’s Kuiper belt and orbiting other stars. Meanwhile, sailing along with a smug expression, the mottled orange planetoid is “busy dancing with its moons. / Cha-cha / Cha-cha-cha” and Kuiper buddies as it waits for Earth’s astronomers to realize at last that it’s different from the other planets (“BINGO!”) and needs a new classification. Ceres inexplicably rates no entry in the gallery of dwarf planets, and the closing glossary isn’t exactly stellar (“World: Any object in space”), but fans of Basher’s postmodern science surveys will feel right at home with the buoyant mix of personification and hard fact.
A rare chance to shine for the former ninth planet. (photos and additional detail, “Note from the Museum,” suggested reading, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 9-11)Pub Date: March 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0423-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2013
So joyous is most of this tale from Wallace that it all but subverts the act of magic serving as the climax. Scarlette Beane is a born gardener, not just with a green thumb, but with green fingers as well. She lives in a small home with her parents, “so they worked outside as much as they could.” They are also avid gardeners, too; the days are clear and they are a supremely merry lot. Scarlette is given a garden when she turns five, and proceeds to grow colossal vegetables that have to be individually harvested with machines. Everyone in the village comes to help, and then to eat the soup made from the bounty. They must eat outside because the house is too small, but no one minds such a glorious picnic, even when it rains. That night, Scarlette creeps out of bed to a high meadow and plants a bunch of seeds in a hole. The next day, a castle of vegetables rises from the meadow: “Mrs. Beane kissed her daughter’s face. ‘I knew you’d do something wonderful,’ she whispered.” Since their small house has suited them so beautifully, this ending has the feel of gilding the lily. Thickly painted, expressively modeled artwork adds to the atmosphere of green and growing miracles. (Picture book. 3-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-8037-2475-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
PLB 0-688-12781-9 Stock has created a dreamy little book with her trademark lovely watercolors to tell the story of a Greek island that is transformed each summer by the visitors who arrive to enjoy its charms. The islanders carefully prepare their village beforehand so that all will be ready for the summer people: “the ladies with their hats and cats and sun umbrellas, the men with their folding chairs and playing cards and newspapers . . . and the children with their buckets and beach balls and snorkels and flippers and all their noisy noisy noise.” Stock’s poetic language and her vibrant watercolors allow readers to bask in scenes of a carefree summer that will bring relaxation, rejuvenation, and renewal. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: July 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-12780-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1999
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