Me and My Place in Space [Hardcover]

Joan Sweeney (Author), Annette Cable (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 5 and up | Grade Level: K and up

Where is the earth? Where is the sun? Where are the stars? Me and My Place in Space takes on the simplest questions about the universe and gives answers that young children can easily understand. Using clear language, drawings, and diagrams, space unfolds before a child's eyes. With our world as the starting point, we are taken on a tour past each planet and on to the stars--all through the eyes of a young girl. Colorful illustrations, filled with fun and detail, give children a lot to look for on every page. A glossary, included for further information, helps to provide an enjoyable, easy-to-read, and easy-to-use introduction to the universe.  

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

PreSchool-Grade 2-The creators of Me on the Map (Crown, 1996) trump Robin Hirst's My Place in Space (Orchard, 1990) by adding a tour of the solar system to their young narrator's cheery recitation of her place in the universe. Donning an imaginary space suit and dashing off childlike crayon drawings as she goes, the russet-haired tour guide takes viewers past the Moon, Sun, and each planet, then out to the Milky Way and beyond. At each stop, she furnishes a digestible fact or two (Venus's "gleaming cloud cover makes it the brightest planet of them all"). Finally, she returns to her room to wonder, "Way out in space, is there another...planet like Earth? With another someone like me? Could be." Cable fills the spaces behind and around the crayon art with soft-focus views of a well-furnished playroom or unobtrusive star fields. Pair this upward-facing journey with Steve Jenkins's Looking Down (Ticknor & Fields, 1995) to give young children a clearer idea of the universe's size and structure, as well as their own places in the physical scheme of things.
John Peters, New York Public Library
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Inside Flap

Where is the earth? Where is the sun? Where are the stars? Me and My Place in Space takes on the simplest questions about the universe and gives answers that young children can easily understand. Using clear language, drawings, and diagrams, space unfolds before a child's eyes. With our world as the starting point, we are taken on a tour past each planet and on to the stars--all through the eyes of a young girl. Colorful illustrations, filled with fun and detail, give children a lot to look for on every page. A glossary, included for further information, helps to provide an enjoyable, easy-to-read, and easy-to-use introduction to the universe.  

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 5 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Crown Books for Young Readers (July 13, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517709686
• ISBN-13: 978-0517709689
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 9.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,433,477 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars demonstrates a difficult concept well, December 9, 2000

By 

Steve Pirnat (Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Me and My Place in Space (Dragonfly Books) (Paperback)

We use this book and its predecessor, Me On The Map, to teach map concepts in First grade. Children this age generally have difficulty with the "nesting" idea of these things--that you can be in a county, state, country, continent, on a planet, and in a solar system, all at once. These books do a good job of making this more tangible and easier to grasp. It is especially effective when students do a re-write following the reading and personalize it to their own place on the map.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great non-fiction for young Children., October 15, 2006

By 

DD67 "babyonahill" (Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Me and My Place in Space (Dragonfly Books) (Paperback)

Great illustrations, and informative non-fiction for preschoolers. I am a big beleiver in improving young children's vocabulary through non-fiction reading. This book series will help keep your youngsters attention while you talk to him/her about the world around us. A couple sentences per page. If you want to read another science series with more reading and more detail, but still great illustrations try the "Let's read and find out science" series including "Why Frogs are Wet" and many others.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful for my 1 year old, December 15, 2005

By 

littled - See all my reviews

This review is from: Me and My Place in Space (Dragonfly Books) (Paperback)

My one year old daugher and I read this book at least once a day. She loves the illustrations-like the space suit with pop beads for the oxygen line. It is not too wordy, so she stays engaged, yet provides all the basic information about our solar system and planets. She can now identify the pictures of the moon and the earth by name and knows that earth is where she lives. An animal lover, she also likes that the cat journeys into space. My daughter and I often look at the night sky, and she knows the ASL signs for moon and stars. I think that is why she loves this book so much despite her young age. This is a wonderful introduction to basic astronomy, and has spurred me to order more books on space for us to share.