Scratching the Surface: Exploring Earth's Layers

by Kate Allen Fox, Erin Brown (Illustrator)

Overview

A lyrical, scientific exploration of what’s below our feet, this gorgeously illustrated informational picture book digs into geological discoveries—and embraces the mysteries science has yet to solve. Join “science poet” Kate Allen Fox (Pando, Capstone, 2021—named a Best Book of 2021 by School Library Journal) on a journey to the center of the Earth in this fascinating, wonder-filled investigation of Earth’s layers. Illustrated cross-sections and additional nonfiction back matter about the scientific method make this narrative nonfiction a comprehensive and satisfying experience for young scientists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781630793340
Publisher:	Capstone
Publication date:	08/01/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	21 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	7 - 10 Years

About the Author

Erin Brown is a Belfast-born Northern Irish illustrator who lives and works on the beautiful island of Jersey in the Channel Islands. After graduating university with a bachelors degree in Fine Art, she discovered a passion for stories and children’s books. She combines her love for hand-drawn lines and traditional techniques with the flexibility and freedom of adding color digitally. When she’s not working in her tiny studio, she can be found baking something overly sweet, exploring the forests and cliff paths of Jersey, or down at the sea shore, watching the tide roll in.
Kate Allen Fox lives in southern California with her husband and two sons. After a career as a public health professional, she combined her passions for research and writing and began creating picture books about science and nature. Her work has appeared in several publications, including The New York Times. Pando is her first picture book.

Interviews

Author Kate Allen Fox’s debut picture book, Pando: A Living Wonder of Trees (Capstone), was named one of the Best Books of 2021 by School Library Journal, Pittsburgh Public Schools, and Chicago Public Library, and it was a finalist for the SCBWI Crystal Kite Award. Her second book, A Few Beautiful Minutes (Little, Brown), earned starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, was named an NCTE Honor Book, and was also a Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2023;

Editorial Reviews

2025-05-16
What lurks deep within the Earth, beneath our feet?

As two children—one brown-skinned, one pale-skinned—build a sand castle by the shore, Fox peppers readers with questions (“What’s inside our planet?” “Why do volcanoes form and continents shift?”), then invites them to look for answers: “Let’s explore.” Her calm, lyrical text is both poetic and practical. The crust is “where worms wriggle and writhe,” but miles down, the temperature is “twice as hot as an oven baking cookies.” Though the unseen narrator references both Mt. Everest and Russia’s Kola Borehole, most scenes are set so far below the surface that they could be anywhere on the globe. The author injects the text with small doses of geology such as brief explanations of temperature and pressure, plate tectonics, what scientists can learn from earthquakes, and the astonishing life-giving function of the inner core. Fox’s praise of “the great thing about science” shades into a bigger observation: “We learn and we guess and we try and we fail and we try again. We hope to be right more often than we’re wrong. It’s a lot like being human.” Brown’s illustrations use bold, imaginative compositions, with cutaways, fluid lines, and vibrant, varied color to add drama as she switches from scenes of people exploring the world aboveground and the hidden world deep below.

Scratches young geologists’ itch for knowledge. (author’s note, information on the scientific method, glossary, further reading, bibliography)(Informational picture book. 7-10)

Kirkus Reviews