Stars! Stars! Stars!

May 6, 2002
In this poetic ode to the night sky, Barner (Bugs! Bugs! Bugs!) gives a child's awestruck account of the stars and the solar system's nine planets. Collages of cut and torn paper, saturated with deep blues and luminous yellows, suggest early evening. A silhouetted child hoists a telescope and looks up at a sprinkling of stylized five-pointed stars, while rhyming phrases dance and swirl across the pages: "Shooting stars/ streaking tails of sparkling light/ The Big Dipper holding a scoop of night." The diaphanous poetry and the radiant, imprecise illustrations complement one another, but Barner stumbles in his delivery of quantitative information, which seems misplaced in this exercise. While the casual main text introduces the planets and pictures some fanciful stellar groupings (which appear to be based on the Hare, Whale and Little Fox constellations), a glossary of astronomical terms declares, "There are 88 constellations in the sky" and "The Sun has been burning for about 5 billion years." This open-ended data interrupts the reverie without providing real substance for reflection. Barner's pleasingly illustrated volume is most appealing when it marvels at the firmament. Ages 4-8.

May 1, 2002
K-Gr 2-The author who led children on a tour of the skeletal system in Dem Bones (Chronicle, 1996) now takes them on a similarly energetic tour of the solar system, illustrated with busy paper collages, predominantly in saturated blues and purples, through which lines of rhymed commentary undulate. As if that's not enough, he then recapitulates and expands upon previous information with three pages of random, unrhymed facts about the planets and the universe in general. As lines like "Constellations that take shape when I connect them with lines Milky Way stars shining two hundred billion times The Sun that burns with golden light Hot planet Mercury turning slowly in the night" demonstrate, Barner has no ear for rhythm. Furthermore, viewers will have to guess which of the starry shapes scattered about the spread devoted to the four outer planets is Pluto. The enthusiasm is commendable, and infectious, but for library collections, this should be considered only after more reliable (and readable) titles like Gail Gibbons's The Planets (Holiday, 1993).-John Peters, New York Public Library

Copyright 2002 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.