What do you think?
Rate this book
Planets
Book by Justin McCory Martin
- GenresNonfictionSpaceScience
16 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 21, 2021
No, I absolutely would not really ever consider actively recommending Seymour Simon’s 2006 astronomy picture book Planets. For albeit that the author’s featured text does indeed present a thorough and sufficiently detailed as well as nicely interesting general introduction to our solar system and its planets (and also and thankfully never penned too scientifically, never too textually dense and as such possibly confusing for the intended age group, for children from about the age of seven to ten), the fact that due to its 2006 publication date, Planets still considers Pluto as the ninth planet and not yet a dwarf planetoid (even though said possibility is mentioned), this most certainly does to and for me mean that in particular for teaching and learning purposes, for introducing today’s children to the solar system, Planets is simply much much too out of date to even consider using. And while if truth be told, I personally have always been rather majorly annoyed at and frustrated by the demotion of Pluto from planet to planetoid, to now being considered akin to some of the larger asteroids, well and indeed, a non fiction science based tome that is clearly meant to be used for educational purposes, that is meant to teach today’s children about astronomy really needs to be as completely up to date as possible and Planets simply does not accomplish this with Seymour Simon in 2006 still designating and describing Pluto as being the ninth planet.
And while I do find the general marriage of text and accompanying photographs in Planets successful and that for 2006, Seymour Simon’s introduction to our solar system and its planets is of course also scientifically solid and sound, for 2021 Planets is just too outdated with regard to Pluto’s position and role, and I would thus and definitely not ever consider using Planets with children and for educational purposes, and especially so because Planets also contains no bibliographic materials, no listed books, no websites for further study and research, and which alongside of its datedness further severely, exponentially lessens and limits the educational value of this book, of Planets to the point of no return so to speak. For if for example Seymour Simon had included say some astronomy websites to consult, a teacher or a parent might have a child or a group of children read Planets and then consult the listed web pages to clear up any questions with regard to encountered outdatedness, but sadly, the complete lack of included secondary sources kind of makes this impossible or at least much more difficult and problematic with regard to Planets.
And while I do find the general marriage of text and accompanying photographs in Planets successful and that for 2006, Seymour Simon’s introduction to our solar system and its planets is of course also scientifically solid and sound, for 2021 Planets is just too outdated with regard to Pluto’s position and role, and I would thus and definitely not ever consider using Planets with children and for educational purposes, and especially so because Planets also contains no bibliographic materials, no listed books, no websites for further study and research, and which alongside of its datedness further severely, exponentially lessens and limits the educational value of this book, of Planets to the point of no return so to speak. For if for example Seymour Simon had included say some astronomy websites to consult, a teacher or a parent might have a child or a group of children read Planets and then consult the listed web pages to clear up any questions with regard to encountered outdatedness, but sadly, the complete lack of included secondary sources kind of makes this impossible or at least much more difficult and problematic with regard to Planets.
Displaying 1 of 1 review