Published by Imprint

Summary:  It’s the day of the Big Star Little Gala, and Stella wants her hair to look just right.  But it’s twisting and turning, zigging and zagging, making loopity-loops and lots of curly Q’a.  Stella’s Momma sends her off to visit her aunt on Mercury.  Aunt Ofelia’s stay-smooth style isn’t quite right, so Stella goes to see Auntie Alma on Venus.  Each planetary aunt has different ideas about her hair, but none satisfies Stella.  Finally, Auntie Solana, the aunt over by the sun, has the best advice of all: just be yourself.  So Stella does her own hair, enjoying its twists, turns, and curls, and that turns out to be the best hair-do for the big event.  Includes two pages of information about the planets and why each one has its particular hairstyle.  40 pages; ages 4-8.

Pros:  The eye-popping art and be-yourself message are sure to resonate with anyone who’s ever had a bad hair day, and particularly celebrates Black hair.

Cons:  I still miss Pluto.

Published by Blue Dot Press

Summary:  A father wakes his child in the middle of the night.  “We’re off to find an aurora.”  They go out into a cold, snowy night.  The child is full of questions: is it scary? Are stars in the aurora? The moon?  Finally, they reach the top of a high hill, and the colors of the aurora explode all around them.  Neither speaks, but on the walk back home, Dad tells all he knows about auroras.  Includes a note entitled “Everything Dad Knew About the Aurora”.  32 pages; ages 3-8.

Pros:  This beautiful book, originally published in New Zealand, captures the feel of being out on a winter’s night, and the magic of the aurora.  The colors in the illustration are gorgeous, and the information is just right for a young child.

Cons:  Although the final note mentions that auroras occur at the North Pole and South Pole, it doesn’t specify where on Earth they can be seen.  Also, a photo or two and a list of additional resources wouldn’t have been amiss.

Published by Enchanted Lion Books

Summary:  As a young boy growing up in Missouri, Edwin Hubble was fascinated by the stars.  When his grandfather gave him a telescope for his eighth birthday, he eschewed birthday cake in favor of looking at the stars.  His strict father prohibited him from studying astronomy in college, but happily for the history of science, said father died in 1914, and Edwin was able to quit teaching high school and go back to school.  He set himself to work on the problem of nebulae like Andromeda: were they within the Milky Way galaxy, or separate galaxies themselves? His discovery, which built on the research of Harvard astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt, showed that they were separate galaxies, revealing that the universe was bigger than previously thought, and that it was expanding.  Edwin helped to create the Hale telescope and was the first to use it in 1949; he was honored with the Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990.  Includes an author’s note, an illustrator’s note, additional information about Hubble’s research, and a bibliography listing three sources.  52 pages; grades 2-5.

Pros:  There don’t seem to be other picture book biographies of Hubble, and this one does a nice job, emphasizing Edwin’s inquisitive mind, clearly explaining the difficult concepts he was researching, and showing the wonders of the universe through the black-sky illustrations.

Cons:  A timeline would have made this a more useful research book.