Skip to main content

11 Planets - A New View of the Solar System by David A. Aguilar

My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants.

That sentence will help you remember the names of the planets in order from the Sun. Did you know we're up to 11 planets in our solar system? Three of those are dwarf planets but have been able to retain their place in our system and each have their own word in the sentence above. High honor, indeed.

I highly recommend this book, published by National Geographic, in 2008. That's pretty recent, but hurry and read it now anyway, because you never know when something is going to change in astronomy. According to Aguilar, "Almost every week another planet is discovered orbiting a distant star."

11 Planets
layout is very kid-reader friendly. Big pictures of each planet accompany 1-2 paragraphs of information. Interesting graphics and facts are off to the side of the main text. Artwork showing the god or goddess the planet is named after and the planet's symbol are part of each page. (I didn't know each planet had it's own symbol, did you?) Some of the pictures are actual photographs taken by amazing machines which are out in space right now, sending back fascinating images. Take a peek at Victoria crater which lies on Mars near its equator. This photo was taken by the HIRSE orbiter. Find it on page 23.

11 Planets is a great book for boys or girls and would have particular appeal to reluctant readers. Look for it in Nonfiction, in the 500's.

Comments

The said…
It was already mentioned in Islam 1400 years ago that there are 11 Planets.

Popular posts from this blog

Stand Tall by Joan Bauer

Stand Tall By Siena Siegel by Joan Bauer Putnam, 2002, 182 pgs Realistic Fiction Tree is 12 years old and over 6 feet tall. That would be great if he were a basketball player, but he is not. Dealing with his unusual size is not Tree's only challenge. Tree's parents have recently gone through a divorce, and his grandfather has had his leg amputated as the result of an old Vietnam War injury. The strength of this book is the characterizations. All of the main characters are dimensional and sympathetic. Bauer sets the characters in real and often funny family situations. Best of all is the character of Tree. He is boy with a heart to match his stature. This is a great book for boys or girls ages 9-12, as a read aloud or for individual reading. This book could also be a good Rx book for children whose families are going through divorce, or for anyone who feels like they don't fit in.

Review: The Factory

The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages.  Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...

Review: Faker

Faker By Gordon Korman New York: Scholastic Press, 2024. Fiction. 214 pages. 12-year-old Trey is used to starting over at a new school -- he has the routine perfectly memorized: make new friends, introduce his dad to the wealthy parents of his new friends, and "Houdini" themselves out of there before they get caught running their latest scam. Trey's dad is a master con artist, and Trey has just been promoted to full-partner. Their new scheme for the next big score brings them to the affluent suburb of Boxelder, TN where Trey's dad has cooked up a fake electric car company for investors to buy into. The only problem is that Trey is starting to grow tired of moving around and never putting down roots, especially after forming a fast friendship with Logan and developing a crush on Kaylee, a socially conscious girl in his class. As Trey longs for a normal life, is there any way he can convince his dad to get out of the family business? Gordon Korman is a perennial favorit...