Astronomy: Out of this World! (Basher Science Series)

by Simon Basher, Dan Green, Simon Basher (Illustrator)

Overview

Basher Science: Astronomy, Out of this World! created and illustrated by Simon Basher, Written by Dan Green:

Like a Facebook for the universe, Astronomy gives every important celestial body and concept its own page, where readers can learn its behaviors, likes, and dislikes up close and personal. From the flashy stars to the shadowy and strange objects that hang out like loners at the edges of the universe, no player goes unnoticed. Every profile has a hip anime-style portrait to round out the picture, but make no mistake: while the presentation is all style, the science is rock solid. The universe has never been so cool.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780753462904
Publisher:	Kingfisher
Publication date:	05/12/2009
Series:	Basher Science Series
Pages:	128
Sales rank:	327,220
Product dimensions:	6.80(w) x 6.90(h) x 0.50(d)
Lexile:	NC1130L (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

About the Author

Simon Basher is the creator and illustrator of The Periodic Table, Physics, and Biology.

Dan Green studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge University. Since graduating, he has written and edited many popular science titles and humorous books, become the editor of a South American national newspaper, worked as a travel writer, as well as developing and editing the wildly successful Horrible Science magazine collection. He is the "voice" of Basher's bestselling science-made-easy books, and to date has written nine titles in the series.

Editorial Reviews

Basher has created a portrait gallery of personified ... celestial bodies in a hyper-cute, pastel cartoon style reminiscent of Japanese artist Takashi Murakami's more extravagant flights. . . . Green's astro-narrative is both accurate and spiced with seldom-mentioned details, ... it could kindle (or in under motivated older readers, rekindle) interest in the topic. And it's fun!” —School Library Journal

From the Publisher

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 star—the 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

School Library Journal