Asa Stahl is an astrophysicist who loves to make science interesting for the youngest readers. His previous book with Creston was the award-winning The Big Bang Book. Carly Allen-Fletcher is an author-illustrator based in England. Her previous books focused on animal and environmental diversity. The Big Bang Book broadened her perspective to be truly out of this world.
'This is the story of the universe. And it begins: / Once upon a time, / we don't know. Suffused with awe, astrophysicist Stahl's well-chosen words, tightly paired with Allen-Fletcher's jewel-toned galactic pictures, aim to capture something of the mind-blowing scope of the big bang. Like the event itself, the story moves with dizzying speed from nothingness (At first, the universe was small) to somethingness (incomprehensible vastness whose one-second growth is represented by 43 zeroes). Stahl's lyricism invites wonder--'It was a hot, messy, / churning soup that cooled./ And fell together neatly' into galaxies--while guiding readers toward Earth ('a planet that's just right') and the enticing possibility of exoplanets, where ('on another planet that's just right') other beings may share this fundamental creation story. An author's note delves into the underlying science.--Publishers Weekly
-- "Journal" (4/10/2020 12:00:00 AM)An astrophysicist goes back to our cosmic origins: 'Once upon a time, / we don't know.' 'Maybe it was dark. / Maybe there was nothing.' Carefully distinguishing verifiable fact from informed speculation, Stahl ushers readers past the first second of the Big Bang through the transformation of plasma to matter, then the appearance of swirling galaxies and their stars and planets, and finally to a planet that's 'just right' for 'you. / And everyone else.' In her suitably dramatic illustrations, Allen-Fletcher modulates from flat black pages to shimmering blasts of light and fiery stellar nurseries that give way to a misty blue Earth, with an indistinct figure in a dim bedroom scene hung with glow-in-the-dark stars--and, accompanying the author's suggestion that there may be more than one planet that's 'just right, ' a pointy eared silhouette likewise looking up into a starlit sky. Unlike James Carter's similarly wonder-infused Once Upon a Star, illustrated by Mar Hernandez (2018), the dizzying notion that the Big Bang marked the beginnings of time and space themselves as well as matter goes unremarked here...but in an expansive afterword the author urges readers to ask big questions like 'What am I?' and 'Where am I?' because they 'cut to the heart of how much we understand about the universe.' A stately recap drawing on current physics and astronomy and appropriately cognizant of their limitations.--Kirkus Reviews
-- "Journal" (12/8/2019 12:00:00 AM)Stahl offers a contemplative yet informative examination of the
Big Bang. With brief text and mixed-media illustration that are
strategically shadowy or explosively bright, scientific knowledge
is shared in direct conversation with readers. The narrative begins
with a child wearing space-themed pajamas and gazing at the night
sky, then delves into facts about galaxies and stars accompanied by
artwork featuring whorls of colorful light. The story's focus
returns to the child in their bed (reading The Big Bang
Book) accompanied by the text, 'And on that planet is you. And
everyone else.' The author, a doctoral student in astrophysics,
ends the book with a note acknowledging the gaps in scientific
knowledge while also sharing detailed mathematical and astronomical
facts about the universe. VERDICT In a crowded field of
Earth-origin and evolution stories for children, this is well worth
a look for its simple, but not vague, approach to the
topic. Alongside Marion Dane Bauer's and Ekua Holmes's poetic
The Stuff of Stars, it will awaken young readers'
curiosity.--School Library Journal
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
