Written by: Steve Parker

Illustrated by: Andrea De Santis

For ages: 4 and up

Language: English

Topics Covered: STEM, Space, The Universe. 

Summary: This book is really cool!  It’s difficult to find books about space for children this young that actually teach them something.  In the Junior Kindergarten classroom Corrie taught in, there was a Space Unit that we struggled to find appropriate literature for.  Everything was either a board book or for reading-aged children.  This book, along with the Professor Astro Cat series solved our problems!  Topics covered include: space, stars, constellations, solar system, astronauts, the international space station, and much more!  This book gives a well-rounded and comprehensive look at all things space, without too many words on the page.  Illustrations by Andrea De Santis are bright, cheerful, and diverse.  If you have a space-lover, this is the book for them!

About the Author & the Illustrator:

Steve Parker’s writing career began with 10 early titles in Dorling Kindersley’s multi-award-winning Eyewitness series, from the late 1980s to the late 1990s. He has since worked for more than a dozen children’s book publishers and been shortlisted for, among others, the Rhone-Poulenc Science Book Prize, Times Educational Information Book of the Year, and Blue Peter Book Award.^[3]

In 2009 he co-wrote The Complete Guide to Minerals, Rocks and Fossils of the World, with John Farndon, (Lorenz Educational Press)

In 2013 Parker’s title Science Crazy (QED) won the UK School Library Association’s Information Book Award,^[4] and Fizzing Physics (QED) won the Hampshire Information Book Award.^[5]

Parker also writes adult books, recently including Extinction: Not the End of the World? (Natural History Museum, 2013),^[6] the million-selling The Human Body Book (Second Edition, Dorling Kindersley, 2013) and Kill or Cure, an Illustrated History of Medicine (Dorling Kindersley, 2013.) ^[7]

In 2014 Kill or Cure entered the New York Times Science Bestsellers ^[8] and also won the 2014 British Medical Association Book Award for Public Understanding of Science.^[9]

In 2015 Parker was general editor of Evolution: The Whole Story (Thames and Hudson), heading a team of 12 expert authors in paleontology, paleobiology and paleoecology. Popular weekly New Scientist described the work as ‘highly accessible … such an attractive and friendly book … the approach breathes life into everything, including “boring” stuff (that is, non-dinosaur stuff) … bright, breezy and modern’. ^[10]

In 2016 Parker produced two of the largest and most complex titles of his career, Medicine: The Definitive Visual History (Dorling Kindersley),^[11] and BODY: The infographic book of us (Aurum Press) with graphic designer, illustrator and academic Andrew Baker.^[12] He also continued his collaboration with London’s Natural History Museum with publication of Colour and Vision: Through the Eyes of Nature. 2017 saw further titles including A Brief Illustrated History of Life on Earth (Raintree) ^[13] with specialist illustrator David West, and books on dinosaurs, oceans and seas, and robots and gadgets. In 2018 Parker received the School Library Information Book award for the second time, for In Focus: Seas and Oceans (Kingfisher).

Andrea De Santis was born in Brescia, Italy, in 1978, but now lives in the center of Italy.

He started drawing when he was a child, continually looking for ideas that would increase his imagination. After graduation at the Art School, De Santis started working as Graphic Designer in several fields, such as Toys, Apparel, and Communication.

Nevertheless the illustration has always been his dream in a drawer, that’s why one day he decided to apply completely himself to this art as a freelance artist.

Andrea creates covers for Italian and foreign publishers, e.g. Pan Mcmillan, Suhrkamp, Gestalten, Einaudi, Feltrinelli, Mondadori. He also works for important communication agencies and Science, Psychology, Wellness magazines, such as WWD, Oprah magazine, New Scientist, The Observer/The Guardian, John Hopkins e Variety.

His illustrations belong to conceptual or surrealist art and his style is mainly minimal and narrative. De Santis uses chromatic contrasts and rarefied atmospheres to compose oneiric scenes. He always tries to give a positive, playful vision.

In De Santis’ spare time he loves reading books, traveling, riding his old motorcycle and go swimming – themes that often inspire illustrations.