Space Archives - Ivy's Library

Look Up!
by Nathan Bryon & Dapo Adeola

Rocket is a little girl with a big passion. She loves to gaze at the night sky and when she grows up she wants to be “the greatest astronaut, star-catcher, space-traveller who has ever lived”. Every day, she pops on her tiny replica spacesuit, dons her star-shaped earrings and dreams of the day she can follow in the footsteps of her hero Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman in space.

The problem is that whilst she is looking up, everybody else seems to be looking down. She wants her brother to be as excited about the upcoming meteor shower as she is, but his eyes are permanently glued to his phone.

Determined to drum up some interest in this exciting event, Rocket creates flyers to distribute around her neighbourhood and even grabs the microphone at her local supermarket to make an announcement. She wants everyone to gather in their local park to view the meteor shower together – but has she done enough to get the community to join together and look to the skies?

Fri
13 ^th

My First Book of the Cosmos
by Sheddad Kaid-Salah Ferrón & Eduard Altarriba

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Since reading City Moon by Rachael Cole we’ve taken a few evening walks around our neighbourhood. Ivy really enjoys spotting the moon and the stars and it’s prompted lots of questions about Space. This isn’t my specialist subject at all so I’ve been turning to our copy of ‘My First Book of the Cosmos’ for help!

Aimed at children aged 8+, this fascinating book introduces kids to a complex subject in a really fun way. It breaks down a wide range of topics in to manageable chunks and does a great job of explaining it all in a way which is easy to understand (even for me!).

There are pages on gravity, galaxies, the big bang, stars, planets, black holes, wormholes and the possibility of other life forms. The layout is engaging, with brightly coloured illustrations, simple graphs and accessible examples.

Tue
06 ^th

Out of This World
by Pat-a-Cake & Kat Uno

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It’s World Space Week so I thought I would share this gorgeous little board book which is perfect for babies and toddlers.

Featuring bold illustrations and lots of eye-catching shiny sections, it introduces small children to some very big ideas. The pages are folded like a concertina and they are designed to be stretched out to create a frieze. You can use it to keep a baby entertained during tummy time by standing it up in front of them, and toddlers will enjoy sitting in the middle of it and interacting with the pages.

On one side of he frieze we see all of the planets laid out in order. Each of them has a very expressive face (which can be used to talk about emotions) and a descriptive name which tells us something about that specific planet – Little Mercury, Red Mars, Cold Neptune etc. As someone who was born in the seventies I love that there is also a little nod to Pluto as I refuse to accept that he’s been downgraded!

Sat
09 ^th

Goodnight, Aliens by Pat-a-Cake Books & Kat Uno

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This adorable little board book from Pat-a-Cake follows a family of aliens as they move through their bedtime routine. We see the three baby aliens playing with their toys, eating their dinner, having a bath, listening to a bedtime story and then snuggling up to sleep.

The rhyming text is short and repetitive which gives it a lovely sing-song feel. It’s a soothing read for babies, and toddlers will love memorising and repeating the lines back to you.

The colourful illustrations are super cute and there’s the added bonus of a pop up surprise on the very last page.

Fri
15 ^th

The Space Train by Maudie Powell-Tuck & Karl James Mountford

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Jakob lives on a space station at the very edge of the galaxy with his granny and a robot chicken called Derek. Life is good, but deep down Derek really wishes he had some friends to play with.

One day, whilst exploring one of the empty decks, he finds an enormous abandoned space rocket. He shows it to Granny and her whole face lights up. This is the space train which she used to ride when she was a young girl! Once upon a time it streaked across the universe carrying star explorers and comet chasers to the 2,747 stations in the star network.

Jakob’s mind starts to whirr. If he can get the train running again then he can travel to other planets and meet other children! Granny rolls up her sleeves and gets to work. Can they work together to fix the train and head off on an intergalactic adventure?

Tue
04 ^th

There’s An Alien In Your Book by Tom Fletcher & Greg Abbott

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Ivy and I are big fans of ‘There’s A Monster In Your Book‘ so I pre-ordered this new one from Tom Fletcher and Greg Abbott as soon as I heard about it. We were both super excited when it arrived and it has definitely not disappointed.

The story is about a little alien who has crash landed in your book. It’s up to you to try and get him back home where he belongs – but how? By wriggling and jiggling the book around, blowing on the pages, making loud noises and conjuring up some scary faces!

This is a raucous read which has Ivy hooting with laughter every single time. She has declared the alien ‘adorable’ and adopted his little catchphrase – ‘Zaa – Zee – Zoo!’ – which she has decided means ‘I Love You’ in ‘alien language’.

Thu
21 ^st

One Button Benny by Alan Windram & Chloe Holwill-Hunter

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Benny the robot is a little bit different. All of his robot friends have lots of shiny buttons which do fun things, like flash lights, blow bubbles and play music. But poor Benny only has one button. It’s bright red and says ‘Only Press In An Emergency’.

The other robots make fun of him and call him ‘One Button Benny’ and this makes him sad. He doesn’t really know what an emergency is but he secretly hopes one will happen so that he gets to press his button and find out what it does.

One morning Benny wakes up, eats his breakfast and brushes his teeth, unaware that outside his house an actual emergency is unfolding. The evil Collectors have landed on his planet and they are planning to gather up all of the robots, crunch them up and turn them in to teapots! The Collectors are small hairy aliens with green bums and they mean business!

Thu
07 ^th

Think Big! by Kes Gray & Nathan Reed

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When you think of Humpty Dumpty you can’t help but immediately picture him falling off a wall – but what if he could be so much more than that?

This brightly coloured book starts with Humpty sitting on his famous wall, talking about the future with his friends. One of them asks what he wants to be when he grows up and his response shocks them. He wants to be a boiled egg! Aghast, they suggest that he thinks outside of the box.

Wee Willie Winkie thinks Humpty should be a footballer, Little Bo Peep suggests he becomes a detective, whilst Mary Mary Quite Contrary thinks he would make a great musician. Soon everyone is sharing their career aspirations. Little Miss Muffet dreams of becoming a scientist, Goosey Gander plans to become a builder, and This Little Piggy wants to be a traffic warden!

Thu
29 ^th

Gary’s Banana Drama By Jane Massey

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Poor Gary the Gorilla. He absolutely loves bananas but one day he discovers that there are no more left. What on earth is he going to do? But Gary doesn’t panic. He puts on his hat and heads out to try and find some.

Fortunately he spots some of his favourite fruit right outside his house – what luck! But no. Poor Gary realises he is hallucinating when the ‘bananas’ start to woof. He walks all around the town seeing ‘bananas’ everywhere he goes – but there isn’t a single real banana in sight!

Eventually he bumps in to a giant banana which turns out to be a rocket and when he looks up he sees what looks like a banana in the night sky. He hops in the rocket and heads for the stars. Is it possible that he could find bananas in space?

Thu
07 ^th

Praxx And the Ringing Robot By Paul Ian Cross & Andy Green

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Praxx is a little alien who lives on a planet called Ekkadora with his mum and his best friend Zobott the robot. Praxx has lots of chores to do but he’s not a big fan of doing them himself so he sometimes enlists Zobott’s help.

One morning Praxx is rudely awoken by Zobott who is making lots of strange, really loud noises – RING! BLEEP! CROAK! It transpires that Praxx had asked him to help out with tidying up – but he has put everything in the wrong place. The alarm clock, phone and the family pet are all inside Zobott’s tummy storage box, there’s a worm in mum’s handbag and their rocket has been parked in the house!

Praxx learns an important lesson – always do your chores yourself else they might end up taking three times as long to fix!

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