MY FIRST GUIDE TO SPACE

A broad overview of outer space and what can be found there, from satellites to black holes.

Readers seeking a logically organized tour of the cosmos should look elsewhere, as these informally jumbled assemblages of stars, moons, planets, galaxies, tiny astronauts and earthbound stargazers, fanciful aliens, assorted constellations, and spacecraft—all interspersed on crowded spreads with floating definitions or bits of fact—are strung out in, at best, loosely ordered sections. Still, if the evident determination to cram in something about everything leads to simplistic or contradictory claims (readers may come away with the impression that Venus is the only planet to spin “in the opposite direction from the other planets,” though a few pages later, we learn that Uranus also spins clockwise), at least the sheer scope of the topic, not to mention the universe, comes through clearly. Also, the book earns high marks for inclusivity. Ancient Mayan astronomers get as much attention as those of ancient Greece and China, Katherine Johnson joins the Apollo 11 astronauts in receiving quick but proper nods in the section on the first moon landing, and animated figures of the past, present, and future in the art are racially and culturally diverse throughout.

Overstuffed but engagingly illustrated.