In Praise of Mystery

The cadenced text of this deliberately paced poem by U.S. poet laureate Limón, making her children’s book debut, will be etched on Europa Clipper, a spacecraft launching in October 2024 that will head toward Jupiter and its moons. Addressing watery Europa (“O second moon”), the work’s speaker draws everyday existence on planet Earth into relationship with that remote celestial body. “From earth,” early lines scan, “we read the sky/ as if it is an unerring book/ of the universe...// Still, there are mysteries below our sky”—mysteries that render our planet’s inhabitants “creatures of constant awe,/ curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom.” In spreads of textured, primal blue that evoke depth and distance, Caldecott Honoree Sís depicts earthly figures adrift in air and water: birds and whales, a book of knowledge, a bloom-filled tree enclosed in a drop of water. Both delicately and expansively wrought, it’s a work of unity that describes how, though separated by unimaginable distance, the realms are connected by water and more: “We, too, are made of wonders, of great/ and ordinary loves,// of small invisible worlds,// of a need to call out through the dark.” The poem’s text and an author’s note conclude. Ages 4–8. Author’s agent: Rob McQuilkin, Massie and McQuilkin. Illustrator’s agent: Brenda Bowen, Book Group. (Oct.)