Out of this world

Next Stop Neptune

by Alvin Jenkins; illustrated by Steve Jenkins

One of Neptune’s moons is so cold, its volcanoes erupt liquid gas instead of lava, and even that instantly freezes. Dang, that’s cold. And if you drove to Uranus at 60 m.p.h. without ever stopping, it’d take 3,200 years. I’m never complaining about my hubby’s commute again.

This is one cool book, filled with quirky facts like how big Earth would be if the sun were the size of a basketball (about as small as a pea). Alvin Jenkins is a retired physics and astronomy professor who’s teamed up with his son, Steve, a graphic designer. But for all the senior Jenkins’ mind-boggling factoids, it’s his son whose illustrations really wow.

He conjures up our entire solar system from torn paper: Jupiter erupts in fierce electrical storms, sunspots swirl and solar flares leap, and craters dot even the smallest asteroids.

My only nit was that he failed to render the familiar face of our moon, choosing instead to use flecked bits of gray paper without the most familiar valleys and empty “seas” that anyone can spot on a cloudless night.

Note: a School Library Journal review posted on Amazon.com also notes a number of factual errors in the book, most notably locating a famous volcano on the wrong planet and assigning Pluto a wrong orbit. For that reason, I'm downgrading the rating.

Rating: *\*\

Comments

[brettdl]

On the other hand, our 2-year-old learned all the planet names in less than a week. I think that's incredible.

[lapdwife]

Wow, this sounds like a cool book. Errors aside, I'll definitely take a look at it.

[Ontario Emperor]

Since the 1969 moon landing, do illustrators still depict the "face" of the moon? I haven't seen it lately, but then again I haven't read many kids' books myself for a few years (my daughter's starting to get adult lit).

[Anne]

I meant face only figuratively, as in the surface of the moon that's very familiar to us. Whether artists render an actual face depends on the book -- since this is a science text, I would expect it to be factual. A storybook might be more whimsical. Thanks for stopping by.