Smithsonian Discover: Space

One of the gifts of the Common Core Curriculum has been the plethora of excellent non-fiction books being published for children. This wonderful new book is going to be gobbled up by youngsters. The spectacular photographs alone are worth the price of the book, but of course there is much more to this than pretty pictures. The writing is lively, fun, and informative without ever talking down to the young audience. The book is broken into three tabbed sections – The Mysterious Universe, The Solar System, and Space Exploration – and each section contains an envelope with a special bonus (glow-in-the-dark stickers, fact cards, and a two-sided poster) and several spreads each with many beautiful photographs, informative graphics, and short but rich paragraphs covering a variety of topics. Young readers will be completely engaged by every bit of this wonderful book and will want to read it over and over. Youngsters will be so fascinated by all of this that they are likely to not even notice they are learning. This book will be popular with all kids in elementary and middle schools, but their older brothers and sisters and even parents might steal it away.