Out of This World: Poems and Facts About Space

Sklansky contrasts light verse about the universe with facts about outer space (which appear in sidebars) in this gentle collection, while Schuett combines homey gouache cartoons with digitally rendered intergalactic details. After a pair of siblings blast off in a rocket, “The Earth/ fills/ their window/ and then/ drops away,/ like a/ basketball/ baseball/ golfball/ marble./ How far from home/ they’ve traveled today.” Another boy contemplates visiting the planets, allowing Sklansky to work in some additional science (“On Venus, I could marvel/ at a sunrise in the west./ Nice... except sulfuric clouds/ do not encourage guests”). An evocative mix of the whimsical and the scientific. Ages 5–9. Agent: April Prince, Studio Goodwin Sturges. Illustrator’s agent: Christina Tugeau. (Feb.)