Starbook: a magical tale of love and regeneration

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This story is full of friendship, bravery, courage and love and I think it is really important to keep these real events alive. Every school library/history department needs to have a copy of this book.

In NASA Missions to Mars, Piers Bizony paints a beautiful portrait of this most Earth-like of worlds, capturing it through our past imaginations, our present knowledge and, tantalisingly, how it might become our next planetary home. I have never researched anything more terrifying that servicemen and women have been involved in – and I’ve researched a lot. Anyone who earned the Arctic Star medal has my absolute respect. Fire and Ice will introduce you to a whole range of volcanoes, from those forming under pressure at the bottom of the ocean, to the moving wonder of hot spots from the core of Earth forming island chains in the middle of nowhere, to those that are pouring out blue flames – and those are just on our planet. When you think of a volcano, you are probably thinking of something you made at school: a tall cone-shaped structure with bubbling ‘lava’ cascading down the side. In this assumption you would be right, but also simultaneously completely wrong.Although The Mysteries of the Universe is aimed at children, it really is a treat for all ages. Visually stunning, with a fabulous selection of space photos, artworks and illustrations, it is also all-encompassing in its astronomy. Arctic Star won @booksfortopics Upper KS2 Best Curriculum Support award and has been chosen by LoveReading as a 2021 Star Book and has been chosen by Toppsta in their big Summer Reading Feature. I loved the slight tangents the author makes as though she is speaking out loud; these touches make the book feel very personable. My favourite might be how she explains a topological defect in the same way as deciding which bread plate is yours at a fancy dinner.The epilogue is another highlight, where various cosmologists contemplate the end of the Universe. It’s intriguing to read that while this subject is ‘sad’, it really is all about the journey.

An engaging read overall, this book will be of interest to anyone wanting to know more about how we’ve learned what we know about the Universe. Humans have always been fascinated by the stars. But why are we so drawn to these celestial objects? Jo Marchant reveals this historical relationship through beautifully told stories, of gods and spirits, mathematicians and physicists. This book follows the first of those missions, which took place over four months in 2013 and which studied, among other things, the role that food resources would play on a long-term mission.Throughout the book, concepts are well explained, using metaphors and analogies to create an accessible writing style. The author’s day job as an observational astronomer comes through, and there are nice anecdotes about trips to telescopes in Hawaii and Chile, and a few from his base at the University of Cambridge, an institution steeped in astronomical history. The popular science genre is in desperate need of new voices that aren’t the typical standard we are unwittingly used to, and as a starting point I cannot recommend this book enough. I don’t want to write too much about the plot as I don’t want to spoil anything for the reader but all I can say is you will love it and want everyone to come home safely, what an endurance the characters embark on, such a gripping story from beginning to end. Do judge a book by its cover: this one is as gorgeous as it looks. Not only that, it contains the full glory of the cosmos in a language that’s simple and engaging enough for an eight year-old.

Author Dr. Larry Crumpler is one of the long-term planning leads for the Mars Exploration Rover Project, where he assisted in the daily communications between NASA and the rovers crawling around the planet to collect scientific data. In this informative planetary biography, Dr. Crumpler recounts the history of the Red Planet, from ancient times to pioneering discoveries being revealed by modern technology, including some of the first images from the Perseverance rover. Most of the chapters focus on a particular part of the spectrum or a particular discovery. In every case there’s a narrative taking the reader through a potted history, including some very recent discoveries. We learn there are more stars than can be counted, that stars are born in gas clouds, that they are different colours and that our very own Sun is a star. Our brains evolved to comprehend the world around us on a local and accessible scale. We're really not equipped to understand the universe as a 10-dimensional entity — and yet "Hyperspace" explains this revolutionary idea in such a lucid and engaging way that it makes a good deal of sense. Told in Tom’s now trademark historically accurate style, and with obvious admiration and well-deserved respect for those whose story he is recounting, the story doesn’t shy away from the harsh realities of war … Yet another brilliant story from Tom Palmer @richreadalot Introductory filmSign up here for my newsletter for readers, teachers and librarians with exclusive extracts from forthcoming books, new resources, etc.

The author also shows practical changes that we can make to our own lives, as individuals, that will improve the planet as a whole.

The Secret World of Stargazing is a lovely book. It is personal, delicate and beautifully innocent. For those more experienced astronomers, it is a reminder of why so many of us immerse ourselves in the hobby, and for those just starting out, it is a useful leg-up onto the first rung of the stargazing ladder.