Mars Is

March 15, 2021
A photo gallery of Martian landforms and surface features, taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's powerful HiRISE camera. A failure in both concept and execution, this set of big, square close-ups not only renders HiRISE's extraordinarily high-resolution shots as, too often, murky blurs, but pairs them to passages of commentary that don't consistently mention essentials like scale and location--or even seem to be describing what's on display. Slade offers just a small wedge of what she vaguely dubs a "colossal crater," for instance, while leaving viewers to search for invisible "channels in the ice" carved among unexplained hillocks at the Martian south pole and wondering what the dark, brushlike formations that seem to be sticking up from "northern sandy dunes" even are. She just swoons over the planet's "gorgeous rocky layers" and "lovely linear ridges" while building up to a rhapsodic finale ("completely breathtaking!... / Mars is more amazing than anyone ever imagined!") in immense type. Capped by a closing timeline that asks readers to believe that Mars was "first discovered" in the 1600s, this outing offers neither the information nor the inspiration of similar photo essays like Seymour Simon's Mars (1987) and Elizabeth Rusch's Mighty Mars Rovers (2012). Never leaves the launchpad. (Informational picture book. 7-9)

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April 15, 2021
Preschool-Grade 3 *Starred Review* Using breathtaking photos from NASA's HiRISE camera, this unique look at Mars' terrain has something to offer a range of space explorers, from the April Pulley Sayre set, who like their images with short, expressive text, to older picture-book readers, unafraid of sinking their teeth into some real science, as conveyed in each spread's small paragraph of more detailed information connected to its featured photo. The larger, main text is descriptive and poetic, full of satisfying alliteration and consonance. For example, the first three spreads read, "Mars is buried bedrock, / bubbling gas, / and mighty mesas." Each phrase is perfectly paired with its dramatic photo, while the paragraphs offer facts and fascinating statistics. The "Mars is . . ." pattern occurs three more times, revealing more wonders with each page turn. Wonderfully textured and patterned, the book's pictures show swirling ice caps that appear embossed in gold, a valley's ridges gently rippling like crepe paper, and steeply sloped or craggy cliffs. Interestingly, the HiRISE camera applies colors to its photos that would normally exist outside the range that humans can see and enhances some of the colors we do, resulting in an amazing array of pigments within each picture. Informative back matter provides further information on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, the HiRISE camera, and a time line of Mars exploration.

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May 1, 2021

Gr 2-4-Mars is a planet where the surface has more to it than meets the eye. This book provides factual information about Mars paired with gorgeous photos of the geographic wonders that envelope various parts of the red planet. From bubbling gasses to cliffs and canyons, readers will be enthralled by these aspects of our neighboring planet. The book starts out with a simple "Mars Is..." and then begins listing all of the different landforms and movements happening on Mars's surface, accompanied by detailed and colorful close-up photography of the mentioned geological features. The large text of the book carries on a simple narrative of the wonders of Mars, while each spread also includes a brief descriptive paragraph detailing the scientific phenomena behind that particular geological feature. The simple narrative and the pictures alone could work well for a younger elementary reader, while older readers could benefit from the additional information. VERDICT Because of the dual nature of the text that is understandable by various young readers and the literally out of this world photography, this makes a great addition to elementary school space nonfiction collections.-Molly Dettmann, Norman North H.S., OK

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