About the Author

David A. Aguilar is the author and illustrator of several books from National Geographic. His 13 Planets: The Latest View of the Solar System received the Eureka! Nonfiction Children's Book Gold Award from the California Reading Association. His writings are widely recognized for their ability to communicate the wonderment of science to enthusiasts of all ages. He is the originator of the Science Discovery program at the University of Colorado, Boulder; the popular host of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Observatory Nights program; and the past director of the Fiske Planetarium.

Reviews

Gr 4-6-Including remote Eris, Haumea, and Makemake in his count of major and dwarf planets, Aguilar tours the solar system from the Sun out to the Oort Cloud, highlighting such relatively recent discoveries as Saturn's "dark ring" and closing with a quick note about extrasolar planets. A claim that "occasionally a colossal meteorite strikes the Earth" seems likely to provoke unnecessary anxiety, and readers will struggle to draw anything meaningful from the statement that "billions of years from now, as our Sun begins its final days, new worlds among the stars may await our arrival." Furthermore, both Mercury and Jupiter's moon Callisto are designated as "the most heavily cratered object in our solar system," and recent observations have cast doubt on whether Eris is actually larger than Pluto, as claimed here. Alongside the volume's many excellent, large, sharply detailed space photos and paintings are provocatively posed smaller images of often scantily clad gods and goddesses representing their eponymous planets, which strike a dissonant note. Though the continuing flood of new knowledge about our solar neighborhood makes frequent updates a necessity, this one is problematic.-John Peters, formerly at New York Public Library (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.