Animals in the Sky

Every night when the sky is clear, it’s filled with twinkling stars. Children might not know that those stars sometimes join up to make the shapes of animals - and sometimes those animals are known as constellations. For instance, the constellation in the shape of a bear, called The Great Bear, also known as the Big Dipper or the Plough, or a dog, known as Canis Majoris.

In this lovely board book with nice thick fold-out whole-page flaps, children are asked to guess the animal shape of a set of stars before turning the page to see if they were right, and to learn a basic fact about the constellation.

You might think that astronomy would be too advanced a subject for children of board book age, but in fact this is done so nicely that it’s as much about guessing animal shapes as learning about the stars - and if children come away from looking at the book (ideally with an adult) knowing that stars form shapes in the sky, then the book has done its job. It’s very well made and pretty to look at too.