Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei (Caldecott Honor Book)

by Peter Sís, Peter Sís (Illustrator)

Overview

"An original. . .Sis celebrates the life, ideas, and genius of Galileo in a picture book that achieves a brilliance of its own." --Starred, Booklist

"Original and exquisite. . .Sis manages to tell the relatively complicated story of Galileo in such a simple, straightforward way, accompanied by some of the most gorgeous illustrations imaginable." --The New York Times Book Review

Starry Messenger is a 1997 Caldecott Honor Book.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466856745
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	07/15/2014
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	36
File size:	67 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	6 - 10 Years

About the Author

Peter Sís is an internationally acclaimed illustrator, author, and filmmaker. He was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia, and attended the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague and the Royal College of Art in London. Peter is a seven-time winner of The New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year, a two-time Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honoree, and has won the Society of Illustrators Gold Medal twice. Peter's books, Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei, Tibet through the Red Box, and The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain were all named Caldecott Honor books by the American Library Association. The Wall was also awarded the Robert F. Sibert Medal.

In addition, Peter Sís is the first children’s book illustrator to win the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. He was chosen to deliver the 2012 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture for the Association for Library Service to Children. Peter won the 2012 Hans Christian Andersen Award. This award is considered the most prestigious in international children's literature, given biennially by the International Board on Books for Young People.

Peter Sís lives in the New York City area with his wife and children.

Peter Sís is an internationally acclaimed illustrator, author, and filmmaker. He was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia, and attended the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague and the Royal College of Art in London. Peter is a seven-time winner of The New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year, a two-time Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honoree, and has won the Society of Illustrators Gold Medal twice. Peter's books, Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei, Tibet through the Red Box, and The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain were all named Caldecott Honor books by the American Library Association. The Wall was also awarded the Robert F. Sibert Medal.

In addition, Peter Sís is the first children’s book illustrator to win the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. He was chosen to deliver the 2012 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture for the Association for Library Service to Children. Peter won the 2012 Hans Christian Andersen Award. This award is considered the most prestigious in international children's literature, given biennially by the International Board on Books for Young People.

Peter Sís lives in the New York City area with his wife and children.

Reading Group Guide

Peter Sís's picture book biography of Galileo offers readers not only the story of Galileo's life but also a study of courage and conviction, insight into the development of science, a look into history, and an extraordinary example of how art and text can combine to communicate information. The book can be read on many levels. In grades 4-6, teachers can find connections to history, science, art, literature, writing, and a catalyst for a wide variety of research projects.

Editorial Reviews

Usung his dual talents as illustator and storyteller, Sis pays homage to Galileo, the great seventeenth-century mathmatician and astronomer. Sis's extaordinary maps and vistas of Renaissance times, together with artisically rendered quotes from the astronomer and other famous scholars, powerfully evoke Galileo's world.

Barnes & Noble Staff

In the same vein as Sís's Follow the Dream (1991), this work, subtitled "Galileo Galilei," artfully introduces the fascinating life of Galileo to young readers.

Central to this portrait of Galileo's life is the refinement of the telescope for mapping the heavens, leading him to challenge the Ptolemaic belief that the earth was the center of the universe. Sís tells in broad, graceful strokes this extraordinary scientist's story. Augmenting the text are notes and quotes from Galileo's own writings, scrawled in calligraphic style, along with timelines and other chronologic events for more inquisitive readers. Drawing on classic cartography, mapped charts, and 17th-century symbols and images, Sís creates starlit, fresco-like paintings and detailed drawings rich with humor and visual clues. The author's take on his exceptional subject avoids the usual, eye-glazing list of accomplishments and gives readers Galileo himself who always had stars on his mind. A small ink illustration on the copyright page, of an open book with heart and mind taking flight, deserves special attention.

Kirkus Reviews

An original...Sis celebrates the life, ideas, and genius of Galileo in a picture book that achieves a brilliance of its own.” —Starred, Booklist

“Original and exquisite...Sis manages to tell the relatively complicated story of Galileo in such a simple, straightforward way, accompanied by some of the most gorgeous illustrations imaginable.” —The New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher