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This winner of the "Caldecott Honor" is an inspirational biography for the young that won't grow tiresome with repeated readings. While the story of Galileo is interesting on its own, Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei contains plenty of subtle and detailed pictures to keep young ones wanting to view it again and again to find additional aspects of the illustrations and captions that can't be had in just a single reading.
The messages children will learn are also important. Traditions need not be blindly followed. Let the evidence guide your search for truth. There is much to be discovered if you are willing to look diligently and creatively enough. And ideas and new discoveries are immortal--even if the people who contributed them are not.
I highly recommend this book for kids from 4 years of age on up and their parents and couldn't agree more with what the folks who bestowed the Caldecott Honor thought when they said
"No detail is unworthy of attention in the design and layout of this painstakingly intricate picture book as each turn of the page reveals a reluctant world on the very edge of discovery."From the publisher:
A work of art from cover to cover, this is a book of rare quality. --Scientific AmericanMagnificent ... original ... exquisite ... Sís manages to tell the relatively complicated story of Galileo in such a simple, straightforward way, accompanied by some of the most gorgeous illustrations imaginable ... As a result of the interplay between the main and secondary text, and the artistry of the pictures, Starry Messenger possesses a richness and density that are likely to enchant children and adults alike. --The New York Times Book Review
A glory and a marvel ... The Czech-born Sís has written and illustrated about a dozen books of extraordinary beauty, profundity and complexity. --The Boston Sunday Globe
A biography, philosophy and art lesson all in one book? ... The story reads like a fairy tale, the ideas presented give rise to deep thoughts and the beauty of the illustrations demands close attention. --Roanoke Times
This elegant book [is in] a league of its own. --Orlando Sentinel
A work that is both dark and radiant, brilliantly clear and utterly mysterious. Like its title, borrowed from that of Galileo's 1610 manuscript, this book is itself a "starry messenger" of Sís's incomparable imaginative originality. --Washington Post Book World
An original ... Sís celebrates the life, ideas, and genius of Galileo in a picture book that achieves a brilliance of its own.-- Booklist
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