THE DAY MOON AND EARTH HAD AN ARGUMENT

Breaking up, surveying the options, and making up, solar system–style.

Moon and Earth quarrel. So Moon, clad in sports socks and sneakers, stalks off on her extra-long legs to start fresh and meet someone new. Orbiting Venus is fun at first, but the toxic clouds are off-putting. Mercury is too fast to stop for her, and the Sun soon burns her, so she reverses course. Mars looks perfect—until Moon, disillusioned, discovers that Mars has two orbiting satellites already and declines to get involved (“This situation seems complicated”). Upon learning that Jupiter already has a bevy of moons, she decides she doesn’t want to be “anybody’s number ninety-six.” A night of partying with Saturn leaves Moon exhausted. Uranus is too smelly, Neptune is desolate and cold, and is Pluto even a planet anymore? Suddenly Moon longs for Earth. The pastel art is exuberant and decorative; on every page, black space is filled with colorful confetti and tiny improbable spaceships, and planets have stubby appendages and odd alien life-forms. Though the solar system facts are sound, much of the humor, with its references to dating woes, won’t strike a chord with children, who may even emerge with some bleak takeaways about romance. The titular pair apparently reunite only because Moon can’t find anyone better, and they never address the reasons for their fight or promise to do better.

An uncertain mashup of astronomical information and relationship therapy.