Discovering New Planets

Gr 3–5—These titles offer properly tantalizing surveys of our local stellar neighborhood and its ongoing exploration. "The 100 Year Starship" initiative aims "to investigate, research, and prepare for humans to travel beyond our solar system to other stars." Each volume opens by asking readers two true or false questions, promising they'll "find the answer in this book." Despite handsome packaging, star-quality authors, helpful time lines, closing "True Statistics" summaries, and resource lists with online extensions, the information is readily available in existing sets. The illustrations feature an undifferentiated mix of photos and speculative paintings, and the texts contain moot claims, such as that the Big Bang began with a particle and that atoms "are the tiniest forms of matter." The unbalanced focus on the U.S.'s space program and probes means that astronauts from Russia and China are mentioned only briefly and creates a misleading impression that NASA has been the whole show.