STARS BENEATH YOUR BED, The Surprising Story of Dust
By April Pulley Sayre
Pictures by Ann Jonas
Greenwillow Books, 2005
I have a Ph.D. in biochemistry. (Why? Well, that’s a long story for another day.) Anyway, as a result of having these three letters at the end of my name, people assume I know a lot, particularly about science. But the sad fact is that while there are some small and obscure areas of science about which I know a great deal, there is far more that I don’t know. In fact, if I think about it all too much I realize I don’t know anything at all. Thank goodness for all the wonderful science books for children that I read. Otherwise I would be just plain clueless.
Take dust, for instance. All I knew about dust before yesterday was that it is fodder for the dust mites that my son is so allergic to. But then I read April Pulley Sayre’s STARS BENEATH YOUR BED and suddenly I have an appreciation for dust. Did everyone but me know that dust is responsible for colorful sunsets? And that dust nucleates raindrops? And that dust can stay in the air for hundreds and thousands of years? With April’s poetic language and Ann Jonas’ watercolor illustrations, STARS BENEATH YOUR BED introduces children to the wonders (yes, the wonders) of dust. Check it out.
Also, if you care about children’s literature and if you work in the industry (as a writer or an illustrator or a bookseller or a publisher or an editor or an educator or a librarian) you should visit the Children’s Media Professionals’ Forum, which April Sayre hosts on her website. CMP is a fantastic community of folks who care deeply about children’s books and other media. You should check it out, too.