Nova the Star Eater - Hardcover

Leslie, Lindsay

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1624146937 ISBN 13: 9781624146930

Publisher: Page Street Kids, 2019

Synopsis

Nova has a big appetite for stars, so when she decides to gobble up Earth’s Sun, panic erupts around the globe. Earth needs its Sun to survive! How will it get it back from Nova? One bright little girl just might have a solution. Sparkling with humor and interstellar adventure, this story showcases creative problem-solving and a subtle reminder to not eat someone else’s food―or stars―without asking first.

Expressive illustrations add excitement and silliness to Earth’s predicament, while a mix of the fantastical and factual provides a fun way to learn just how important our Sun is. A laugh-out-loud space adventure full of gas...and heart.

About this title

About the Author:

Lindsay Leslie, author of This Book Is Spineless, has been in awe of space since she was a kid. She graduated from the University of Texas and has more than fifteen years of writing experience for one of largest PR firms in the world. Her blog “A Book and a Pie” reviews picture books and pairs them with fitting pie recipes. She lives with her husband and two boys in Austin, Texas.

John Taesoo Kim, illustrator of Oliver: The Second-Largest Living Thing on Earth, creates character and background art for a tech training company when he’s not drawing trees or stars. He has a BFA in Illustration from the Maryland Institute College of Art and lives in the Washington, DC, area.

From School Library Journal:

K-Gr 2-Roaming the spaceways, gulping stars from red supergiants on down, Nova swallows a juicy yellow dwarf and is taken aback by the storm of protest that rises from a pretty planet nearby: "The Sun is our star!" "The people on Earth need it to survive!" Considering that the snack has made her uncomfortably gassy (at both ends), Nova is more than willing to give it back-but how? Earth leaders from many countries (not, interestingly, including the U.S. or Russia) gather to confer, but even the idea of waiting "until it passes" seems risky. In Kim's big, glowing illustrations human figures are a young, diverse lot and Nova (presumably a black hole, though never identified as such) is portrayed as an immense but nebulous sphere with anthropomorphic features. The winning ploy, suggested by a child, turns out to be tickling Nova with Earthly winds and treetops, plus a very large hand fortuitously carried aboard a human spacecraft. Putting the Sun back where she found it, Nova departs for Orion's Belt and a closing twist ("...is this your star?" "Nurz, zeets nehs." "Fantastic!"), both figuratively and literally dark. Though science truly takes a backseat here, the Earthlings' explanations of what the Sun does for our planet are right-on, and an afterword adds further facts about our local star and fellow planets. VERDICT A delicious astro-tale that provides lower primary grade audiences with glimpses of our place in space, capped with a zinger that will please Jon Klassen fans.-John Peters, Children's Literature Consultant, New Yorkα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

About this edition

• Publisher: Page Street Kids
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1624146937
• ISBN 13: 9781624146930
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Kim John Taesoo