Gr 4-8 Employing the same illustrative style used in Adrian Dingle's The Periodic Table: Elements with Style! (Kingfisher, 2007), Basher has created a portrait gallery of personified planets, comets, space probes, galaxies, several kinds of stars, and an array of other celestial bodies in a hyper-cute, pastel cartoon style reminiscent of Japanese artist Takashi Murakami's more extravagant flights. Along with short bulleted lists of additional information, each figure offers a fact-based self-description, from the Sun's exuberant "I'm a total starthe center of everything, baby! A fearsome fireball burning 600 million tons of hydrogen every second" to snotty Space-time's "Because you're used to seeing in only three dimensions, you cannot even imagine what I look like." Though the closest star to the sun is misidentified as a "brown dwarf" (it is actually Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf, which is correctly categorized on a later page), Green's astro-narrative is both accurate and spiced with seldom-mentioned details, such as Pluto's three moons and Saturn's weirdly hexagonal polar cloud. This won't replace more conventionally written and illustrated surveys, but it could kindle (or in undermotivated older readers, rekindle) interest in the topic. And it's fun! John Peters, New York Public Library

Green's book on astronomy seems at first glance more like a Japanese-inspired comic book than a reference book, but its appearance is one of the reasons that it will make a great addition to any library. Color coding and icons guide readers through each chapter. The illustrations are bright and bold, adorning nearly every page. In addition to the great use of color, the illustrations are unique and interesting, featuring characters that will make readers smile. Overall the book is eye catching and vibrant, enabling it to hold the attention of readers at nearly every age level. The text is written in a modern tone that is both playful and educational. Each topic features bulleted items as well as a few conversationally written paragraphs that educate and entertain. With all its glitz, it is important to remember that the book is a reference work, but it does a good job in a package that is both visually appealing and engaging while still communicating information. The only fault might lie in the fact that the entire book is an exercise in personification, both in the drawings and text, as each object studied is a character and the content is often shared from its point of view using first-person narratives. This small infraction can be overlooked, however, because of the selection's ability to give readers that feeling of not wanting to put the book down, a rare treat in nonfiction.ùDawn Talbott.