Customer Reviews

One Small Square, The Night Sky

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Night Sky is an excellent introduction to astronomy for children. I am a science teacher and have looked at many books preparing for my astronomy unit next year - and The Night Sky will be required reading for my class! Information is interesting and exciting. Stargazing is an essential part of the book, but done in the typical "One Small Square" fashion so as to interest and excite children with their new knowledge rather than overwhelm them. I loved this book! A must-have for any young scientist!

This wasn't my favorite in the One Small Square Series, but it is worth checking out if you're a fan of the series. There is a lot of text per page and it was above my youngest children's heads. We also had trouble doing the One Small Square activities that the text recommends (i.e. watching a patch of the night sky is much harder than watching a patch of your backyard!). But the illustrations are great, the coverage is broad, and the amount of information is deeper than the average children's book on astronomy. I think I liked it more than my children, but I did like it.

I docked it one star because this book delves into controversial theory a bit. It subscribes to old-earth/universe theory: planets changing every 10 billion years, a meteor that crashed into Arizona 25000 years ago, a meteorite that hit earth 65 million years ago, and the possibility that another deadly space rock will hit earth again. It doesn't figure aliens but it suggests there is life on other planets. It also says the moon had lava seas 3.5 billion years ago and that the moon might have been made from some of Earth's liquid rock being blasted into space billions of years ago. In my opinion, these last two scientific hypotheses are science fiction at best. And my first grader did not appreciate thinking about meteorites or asteroids hitting Earth again. So if you're skeptical of these kinds of things, you may want to skip this particular book in the Small Square series.