Gentle Reader wrote on February 3, 2010

Is it too much to expect a kid’s book to use right basic grammar? This book is riddled with errors: “your” for “you’re,” “it’s” for “its,” run-on sentences, misspellings, misuse of commas, typos, and so on. Beyond that, the writing is awkward and often doesn’t sound like that of a native speaker of English.

Here’s some text from the back of the book: “Certainly, the privilege of childhood is a glorious freedom to explore the mysteries in life anyway seen fit. ” This barely makes sense and sounds like it was run through an online translator. I have no objection to people writing kids’ books if English is not their first language, but please hire an editor! I can’t hand my child a book like this. Certainly no teacher should have it in a classroom.

The content is only OK. It’s incorrect on some counts (”This makes the 3rd world Venus the hottest planet in the solar system” — last time I looked, Venus was the second “world” in our solar system). It’s stupidly coy in other places (”Wow, taking pictures in space sure is much more complicated that [sic] pushing a button!”).
And it has a bizarre plug for “Baader Astrosolar safety film” on the last page.

Really, there is no excuse for this. For younger preschoolers, I recommend *What’s Out There? A Book About Space. * I’m not sure what there is for kids aged 5 and up, but there’s got to be something better.
Rating: 1 / 5

M. J. Adan wrote on February 3, 2010

My son is five. He loved the pictures in the book in addition to the information about the different planets. In his mind, it really stated the dilema of Pluto very clearly, since Mommy thought it was a planet. The description of gravitational pull is one of the best I’ve seen. While a small more technical than my son is ready for, it has been a fantastic reminder for me. Grandma (age 71) has also said how educational it is for her.
Rating: 5 / 5

Sarah L. wrote on February 3, 2010

My 4 year ancient likes the cute characters. My 8 year ancient tried cutting the planet pictures out. Excellent Grief. . .

This book is very cute and was fun to narrate for my kids. It was a small goofy, though not so much that it drives the ‘reader’ crazy like the cat in the hat type style does after the ten thousandth time of reading.

I have bought dozens of books for my young children on this subject and most are so dull and shallow I wonder if the authors even have a clue about their chosen topic.

This book but, some of the pages looked like the author tried to squeeze in a small too much information. If I had to choose between cute and shallow, or cute and fascinating. . . Well, the CSS is one of the better ones. . .

Rating: 5 / 5

Jenny - Beaverton Elementary wrote on February 3, 2010

Always in search of suitable books for my young students. The Crazy Solar System book is informative, cute, and colorful.

What I loved is that the information is detailed in plain and simple terms without presuming to patronize the reader (or listener) with terms that are too simple. The artwork is very cute, and the full color images of planets and moons, and other objects are a very nice mix.

The content is rather diverse for 38 actual pages ranging from; planets and moons, how quick light travels, telescopes and satellites, to gravity, which is always a tough topic.

In all, this was a very excellent kids (and perhaps some adults) introduction about some of the fundamental aspects of our Solar System.

Five stars for sure.

Rating: 5 / 5