MOONHOPPING THROUGH OUR SOLAR SYSTEM

First of all, Smith establishes his gimmick--let's go off into space and view all the planets from their moons--and then, as Mercury and Venus, the first planets visited, have no moons, the scheme breaks down before it's ever applied. (""We would have to look at these planets from our space ship as we flew by."") Moving out, Smith remarks on the general temperature, air, size, and distance from the sun of each planet, as well as the number of their moons (where we do finally land), but kids can pick up these incidentals elsewhere without the creaky machinery. By the way, Smith never does establish what a moon is, though he bothers to tell readers that ""when there is no moon in the sky, the night is very dark.