A lively introduction to the solar system, beginning with the ideas of primitive star gazers and continuing up through Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, and on to the modern world.

The book details the space race and discusses each planet. The earlier edition I read included Pluto—not yet demoted from its planet status at the time of publication. The book also describes comets, space probes and future space missions.

With wonderful pictures on every pages, interesting sidebars, and fun and inexpensive activities, this book will interest every space enthusiast and astronomer!

The activities described in the book include watching satellites in the night sky—even the International Space Station; making 3-D glasses to look at pictures from Mars; and trying to “work like an astronaut”—trying to manipulate objects while wearing bulky clothing and gloves.

This book is set up to be sampled at any point rather than read straight through. The pictures, side bars and captions invite the reader to drop in on early astronomers, on each planet, and on the space missions.

Reading Level: 8.5, range 7.3-9.3.

Also good for reluctant readers.

Of interest to boys and girls.

This review has been acquired and adapted from CleanTeenReads.com.

Content Analysis:

 This review was acquired from CleanTeenReads.com on May 15, 2014 and was not completed using Compass Book Ratings’ standardized checklist.  Nevertheless, it contains useful content information which is included here.  The overall number ratings have been approximated based on this information.

Matter-of-fact descriptions of space exploration accidents.

Picture of plaque on the Pioneer spacecrafts showing nude male and female figures. 

Mature Subject Matter:

None

Alcohol / Drug Use:

None