Best Preteen Space Books

The Girl Who Named Pluto

A fascinating tale

How did an 11-year-old English schoolgirl come to name Pluto? In "The Girl Who Named Pluto: The Story of Venetia Burney," Alice B. McGinty recounts one child's history-making turn on a fateful morning in 1930. Although the book is aimed at kids ages 4 to 8, there's plenty for older children to connect with as well. And the vintage-flavored illustrations by Elizabeth Haidle make the experience a visual delight. 

Venetia had connected her love of mythology with her knowledge of science to christen the new planet after the Roman god of the underworld, refusing to let her age or gender to hold her back. 

McGinley says she hopes Venetia's tale inspires her readers — girls, in particular. "I hope girls read it and feel empowered to be part of the scientific process," she said. "I hope boys read it and feel empowered, too, and understand how important girls are to science.

Here We Are

Speaking to the future

"Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth," the latest picture book by bestselling author and illustrator Oliver Jeffers, is many different things. It's a love letter to his newborn son. It's a toddler-friendly guide to the big, blue marble we call home. Or, as Jeffers' editor joked, it's a book for "new babies, new parents and misplaced humans." But most of all, it's a manual for how to be a standup human being, one who is tolerant, respectful and unfailingly kind.

Jeffers's jewel-toned renderings, liberally sprinkled with details that invite closer inspection, evoke the planet's immensity with warmth and gentility. Yet for all its enormity — at least, from our vantage point — Earth barely registers in the vast expanse of space. We are impossibly fragile. And, for better or worse, we're all in it together.

"We may all look different, act different and sound different … but don’t be fooled, we are all people," Jeffers writes. "There is enough for everyone."

A Hundred Billion Trillion Stars

Beautifully illustrated

In "A Hundred Billion Trillion Stars," Seth Fishman Tackles the numbers that permeate everything around us. Not just any numbers, mind you, but enormous numbers. Gigantic, mind-bogglingly tremendous whoppers of numbers. Numbers that the human mind can scarcely comprehend.

Accompanied by delightful illustrations by Isabel Greenberg, Fishman makes infinitesimal figures like the number of seconds in a year (31,536,000), the distance between the Earth and the moon (240,000 miles), and how many people go shoulder-to-shoulder every day on our big blue marble (7,500,000,000) relatable to the four-to-eight age group.

"A child isn't necessarily going to get the number of raindrops in a thunderstorm (1,620, 000,000,000,000)," Fishman said, "but maybe it'll help them connect with what the word 'trillion' means because they know what a thunderstorm looks like." He also throws in fun facts that pint-size readers will take delight in. Who knew that a great white shark has about 300 teeth? Or that we might eat up to 70 pounds of bugs in our lifetime? Fishman's numbers will thrill, amaze, and elucidate.

I am Neil Armstrong

All about a legend

"I Am Neil Armstrong," a new children's book by bestselling author and History Channel host Brad Meltzer, shows kids how never giving up got Neil Armstrong all the way to the moon. Meltzer artfully captures Armstrong's journey all the way from childhood through his historic first steps on the lunar surface. But Meltzer doesn't just focus on those famous steps. He begins the story decades before the Apollo 11 mission with a very young Armstrong trying to climb to the top of a silver maple tree. After falling and getting back up, Armstrong continued this pattern of determination throughout his career. 

Armstrong's story of inspiration is masterfully executed in this colorful, delightful biography.

Margaret and the Moon

An amazing woman

In "Margaret and the Moon: How Margaret Hamilton Saved the First Lunar Landing," Dean Robbins outlines the pioneering software engineer's life, from the backyard of her childhood home, where she posed a million questions about the night sky, to the hallways of NASA, where she led a team from MIT to develop the onboard flight software that would land the first men on the moon. When an accident threatened to abort the Apollo 11 moon landing, Hamilton swooped in to save the day with her smarts and preparation. 

At a time when women were expected to stay in the home and raise children, Hamilton’s role in the Apollo program was "revelatory," according to Robbins. He said he hopes his young readers will find a strong role model in Hamilton, who solved problems large and small with creativity and fearlessness. "In my wildest dreams, readers of  'Margaret and the Moon' will grow up to make the next great breakthroughs in whatever they choose to do," he said.

Looking Up!

How to view the stars

For first through third graders who are curious about the night sky, Joe Rao's fact-filled early-reader chapter book will satisfy basic questions about the sun and the moon, the stars, the planets, comets and meteors in an engaging, age-appropriate manner. The centerpiece of the primer, however, is the section on the total solar eclipse that will take place across the United States on Aug. 21, 2017. 

Rao debunks the notion that viewing an eclipse at the moment of totality — that is, the few minutes when the sun is fully engulfed by the moon — is harmful to the naked eye. Once the sun is totally covered, you can look and "be amazed at one of Mother Nature's most spectacular sights," he writes. But turn away once the sun starts peeking out lest you be blinded, or use one of the safe viewing techniques he recommends to continue observing the spectacle