The Stardust That Made Us: a Visual Exploration of Chemistry, Atoms, Elements and the Universe by Colin Stuart. Illustrated by Ximo Abadia. 80 p. Big Picture Press/ Candlewick Press, March 2022. 9781536223835. (Review of finished copy courtesy of publisher.)
Fact Friday features a book I wish I had in school, The Stardust That Made Us: a Visual Exploration of Chemistry, Atoms, Elements and the Universe by Colin Stuart. Maybe I would understand it. It's oversized and vibrantly illustrated, but more importantly, the text is easy to follow and fascinating. The author is a British astronomer who speaks and writes on the topic.
How can we be made of stardust? What a mind-blowing idea! The author uses the analogy of a cookbook full of recipes, and the fact that lots of different dishes can be made from similar ingredients. The ingredients in nature are the elements. Readers learn vocabulary, chemistry, the Big Bang theory, how to navigate the Periodic Table, important physicists, how the elements were named and how we interact with them in real life.
There is no index or other back matter. The Table of Contents should help researchers locate information, but this volume lends itself more to browsing and contemplating. That's not a bad thing. The Stardust That Made Us is a worthy addition to any library or science class.
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