PRAISE AND REVIEWS FOR ELIZABETH RUSCH’S
THE PLANET HUNTER
“Elizabeth Rusch doesn’t just retell the events behind Pluto’s demotion — she teaches children about the magic of making a scientific discovery, and how even scientists can learn from their mistakes. We need more books like these…”
— David Tytell, web editor, Sky & Telescope Magazine
“A fascinating tale, charmingly told, about Caltech astronomer Mike Brown, otherwise known as the guy who got Pluto kicked out of the planetary club. Could very well inspire the next generation of planet hunters.”
-- John Johnson, science writer, Los Angeles Times
“A terrific book! Unlike many children's science books, The Planet Hunter explains complex thoughts through lush drawings and simple but sophisticated language. Every child (and parent) can identify with the infinitely likeable Mike Brown. The Planet Hunter is sure to encourage curious young minds everywhere.”
-- Gabrielle Glaser, feature writer, The Oregonian
CNN.com
This is audio coverage from child reviewer, Andrew Oglesby (8 years old). Click on the small icon of the cover, and then play the audio.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/books/12/18/childrens.books/index.html
CALTECH’s Engineering and Science magazine
High-achieving researchers often get their share of the spotlight. They win prestigious prizes, go on national television and radio, have books, and newspaper and magazine articles written about them and their discoveries. But rarely do you see a scientist featured in an illustrated children’s book.
Professor of Planetary Astronomy Mike Brown now has that distinction. He is the hero of The Planet Hunter: The Story Behind What Happened to Pluto (Rising Moon, 2007), a children’s book written by Elizabeth Rusch and illustrated by Guy Francis. Rusch tells the story of Brown’s childhood, his discovery of Eris—briefly known as the 10th Planet—and the subsequent vote that demoted Pluto and made headlines around the world.
A perusal of children’s books about scientists turns up stories about the likes of Albert Einstein, Galileo, and Leonardo da Vinci—subjects who tend to be old and dead. So if you’re like Brown and don’t fit either category, how do you get a children’s book written about you?
In January 2005, Brown discovered an object in the Kuiper Belt, a population of at least 70,000 icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. But this object, nicknamed Xena (as in the television series’ Warrior Princess), was bigger and farther away than Pluto. Controversy swirled over whether the shiny sphere, now officially named Eris, was indeed the 10th planet. If it wasn’t a planet, Pluto shouldn’t be either, since both objects are markedly different in size, orbit, and location—among other characteristics—from the other eight planets.
Rusch had been engrossed in the debate since the beginning, she says. In August 2006, the controversy came to a head as the International Astronomical Union convened in Prague to vote on the definition of a planet. Rusch realized the implications of the vote were huge, regardless of the result. Every book, poster, and placemat adorned with the solar system loved by children everywhere would have to be changed. This dramatic revision would have to be explained to kids, says Rusch, who has written for both adults and children. “It wasn’t so much that [Brown] discovered the 10th planet,” she says, “but that our understanding of the solar system was going to change one way or another, and the story behind that had to be told.” She wanted to show that science was about constant discovery involving real people, and not just facts to be memorized from a textbook.
She pitched the idea to her editor, got quick approval, and, just a week after Pluto got the boot, sent Brown an e-mail requesting an interview. Initially unsure about the request—admittedly an odd one for an academic—Brown agreed to talk and help with the book. Swamped with media requests and other distractions from the “crazy Pluto thing,” as he calls it, Brown then forgot about the project. “The funniest part of this, at least to me, is that I have almost no memory of this,” Brown says. “There were so many other things going on, this was just one of a million things that were happening.” In fact, Brown neglected to tell his wife until the book came out in December 2007.
Since the topic was a timely one, the project had to move swiftly. The fact that it took just over a year from pitch to publication is an anomaly, Rusch says. Normally, children’s books can take three years to publish. The editor found an illustrator, Guy Francis, who, as it turned out, illustrated the favorite book of Brown’s two-year-old daughter, Lilah. Everything came together smoothly, as if, well, the eight planets were aligned.
For Rusch and Brown, the final product was a success. According to Brown, “The story is dead accurate,” including such details as his failed childhood attempts at rocketry, illustrations of his childhood dog Roscoe and the green 1964 Volkswagen Beetle he drove in high school, and the discovery of Eris and the demotion of Pluto. He’s not sure how successful it’ll be in bookstores, but “it’s fun to watch the Amazon rankings,” he says. At the time of this writing, it’s number 138,554, and at one point reached the top 25 in the category of science and technology biographies for children, joining Einstein, da Vinci, and others who are old and dead. The Planet Hunter has also been nominated for a 2008 Pacific Northwest Book Association Award.
The fact that Brown has a young daughter helps him understand the book’s audience, he says. Lilah, who appears in the story, loves the book. “She thinks it’s the book about her,” he says. The last illustration portrays Brown with Lilah a few years older, looking at the night sky with a telescope. “When I was flipping over the proofs, I saw that, and my heart just sort of melted,” he says. “I have a soft spot for the book just for that.” —MW
OPEN WIDE LOOK INSIDE
Outstanding Science Picturebooks
Yesterday I posted the results of the BCCB Blue Ribbon Awards in Nonfiction. While I found the selected books to be excellent choices, I was more than a little disappointed that not one science book made the list. I was also disturbed to read this statement regarding the selection of this year’s choices.
Then we turned our gaze to our sparse field of nonfiction and decided that we’d rather sacrifice list length than standards.
Sparse? They’re kidding, right?
I’ve decided to correct this HUGE oversight by naming my own award winners for science. Using the categories and criteria the NSTA uses each year in selecting the books that appear on its list of outstanding trade books for science, I have reviewed the books in my teaching collection and come up with a list of my own. The criteria are:
• The book has substantial science content.
• Information is clear, accurate, and up-to-date.
• Theories and facts are clearly distinguished.
• Generalizations are supported by facts, and significant facts are not omitted.
• Books are free of gender, ethnic, and socioeconomic bias.
So, without further ado, here are my choices for the best science books for children and young adults (K-12) published in 2007.
The Planet Hunter: The Story Behind What Happened to Pluto, written by Elizabeth Rusch and illustrated by Guy Francis, is a nonfiction picture book that introduces readers to Mike Brown, the astronomer whose discoveries led to the reclassification of Pluto.
We first meet Mike as a young boy. He is wearing a homemade space helmet on his head, dancing in mud puddles he created to mimic the way craters are made on the moon. We learn that he grew up in Hunstville, Alabama, home of the Marshall Space Flight Center, and that his fascination with astronomy carried him through childhood and into his adult career. He approached the study of the heavens systematically, as described in this excerpt.
Mike remembered how as a kid, he was always losing his sneakers. The only way he could be sure to find them was to start at one end of the house and search room by room.“That’s the way to find a planet,” he said.
Using an old telescope, Mike began searching the sky, section by section.
Mike and a fellow astronomer made a bet, in which Mike suggested that someone would find a new planet within four years. He set about the task of searching in an effort to make sure that someone was him. The book goes on to describe how Mike searched for objects in the sky. Finally, five days after losing the bet, he found an object he hadn’t seen before. He pointed as many telescopes as he could at the object he named Eris. Ultimately, photos from the Hubble Telescope confirmed he had found something that was bigger than Pluto!
This discovery led astronomers to rethink the definition of a planet. At an international meeting of astronomers, a planet was defined as “a body that circles the sun. It is large enough to be round. And it orbits alone, far from anything else its size.” This redefinition meant that Mike’s discovery was not a planet, and now, neither was Pluto.
This is a terrifically interesting biography that provides scientific information in an accessible way for young readers. In addition to the story of Mike Brown, throughout the book there are interesting facts and informational tidbits “bubbled” into the corners of the pages. The book also contains a pull-out poster of the solar system (newly reconfigured), with information about dwarf planets, the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud. Overall, I found this to be an informative and thoroughly engaging book. I highly recommend it.
KIDSBOOKSHELF
By Christina Lewis
When Mike Brown was in second grade he learned how meteorites blasted craters on the moon. After blasting craters of mud in his own backyard Mike went on to build his own rockets, and his fascination with outer space grew from then on. Mike loved to look in the sky, and he often wondered if there were more planets out there. As an adult Mike studied astronomy, and spent years searching for other planets. When Mike finally does discover what he thinks could be a planet, it causes an uproar in the astronomy world, and the solar system we have all learned about may not be exactly right. An interesting look into the life of the astronomer whose discoveries changed the fate of Pluto. (Ages 4-8)
BOOKVIEWS
The prolific Ms. Rusch has also written The Planet Hunter: The Story Behind What Happened to Pluto ($15.95, Rising Moon/Cooper Square Press), also for those 8 and up, that tells the story of astronomer Mike Brown who grew up fascinated by the night sky and determined to find a new planet. Illustrated by Guy Francis, it tells of his search, but it also demonstrates how real science is done by real people. This could inspire a new planet hunter, but in the process it will provide some great reading fun as well."
HUNTSVILLE TIMES
Children's book chronicles demotion of '9th planet'
By Steve Doyle
Dr. Mike Brown, the Huntsville-born astronomer named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in 2006, has received perhaps his biggest compliment yet. Brown's early life in Huntsville and star-gazing career are the subject of a new illustrated children's book, The Planet Hunter: The Story Behind What Happened to Pluto.
"In some ways, it's almost embarrassing," Brown, who works at the renowned California Institute of Technology, said by phone Thursday. "But I really like it. I think they did such a nice job with it."
Author Elizabeth Rusch said she got the inspiration for the book after reading about Brown's January 2005 discovery of an object larger than Pluto in the distant recesses of the solar system. His find touched off a fierce debate among astronomers, who voted in 2006 to reclassify Pluto as a dwarf planet, ending its 76-year reign as the ninth planet.
A space buff herself, Rusch said she was fascinated by the Pluto debate and wanted to try to explain it in simple terms to young children. "I was looking for a story to tell that would bring the science of it to life," she said, "and also the excitement that our knowledge and understanding of the solar system is growing and changing.
"To me, it was remarkable that we were even asking that question, 'What's a planet?'"
Rusch, who lives in Portland, Ore., spent about three hours on the phone interviewing Brown. He said he wasn't sure at first if Pluto's demotion would work as a book aimed at 4- to 8-year-olds. But Rusch and Utah-based illustrator Guy Francis pulled it off by focusing on Brown's childhood fascination with the stars, including flooding his backyard with a garden hose so he could make moon-like craters in the mud. Brown's father, the late Tom Brown, worked on NASA's early computers for IBM in Huntsville.
For Brown, "The Planet Hunter" is like a personal scrapbook. There's the beat-up, 1966 Volkswagen Beetle he drove while attending Grissom High School. And his pet collie Roscoe. And his 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Lilah. And Sabine Aireau, a University of California-Berkeley classmate who bet Brown that it would take astronomers more than four years to find an object bigger than Pluto. Technically, Brown lost the bet: He needed four years and five days to discover Eris in part of the solar system known as the Kuiper Belt. Aireau paid up anyway, buying Brown five bottles of his favorite champagne.
The Rocket City isn't a main character in the book but does make a cameo appearance.
"Mike grew up in Huntsville, Alabama, home of the Marshall Space Flight Center, where test rockets rumbled the ground," Rusch wrote. "Everyone Mike knew was either a rocket engineer or an astronaut."
Brown said his favorite part of the book shows him snipping Pluto off a solar system mobile in Lilah's crib. On the last page, he and a much older Lilah are standing beside a telescope pointed at the night sky. "I just cracked up into tears," Brown said. "That's (Lilah's) favorite part of the book, too."
"I like the fact that the book makes scientists, who are usually these crazy people in white coats with big, curly hair, seem human," he said. "Not only Einstein-level people are doing it, but guys (like Brown) who lost their shoes growing up."
Brown's mother, Huntsville resident Barbara Staggs, is understandably thrilled: She has donated copies of "The Planet Hunter" to the main library downtown and the Bailey Cove branch. "The drawings really look like Mike," Staggs said. "I'm so tickled. It's a great book for kids who are lamenting the demise of Pluto, and they all are."
Rusch is happy with how the book turned out, too, but disappointed that it was released too late for review by school library journals that help determine the success of children's books. The book's scheduled September release was delayed after its publisher, Rising Moon, was acquired by another company. "For me, the really sad part is here's this beautiful book, this incredible story, and in a way it's a little bit invisible," Rusch said. "People don't know about it."
The book retails for $15.95 and is available on amazon.com and by special order from most bookstores, she said.
Meantime, Brown is writing an autobiography about his career and the Pluto controversy. He said he started the project about a year ago but is only partly finished with the book, which is tentatively titled, "How I Killed Pluto and Why it Had it Coming."
"It's hard to write in your spare time," Brown said, "when you don't have spare time."
JELLYMOM
Book description: Picture-book biography of astronomer Mike Brown and the story behind what happened to the planet Pluto.
Surely your kids have asked why Pluto is no longer considered a planet. Here's an ideal way to share some pretty interesting science and the people whose insatiable curiosity and passion make some amazing discoveries. I really liked how Elizabeth Rusch creates a fascinating story that weaves biography and scientific fact and discovery in a way that encourages and excites readers in this age group. Great for planting vocational seeds.
BOOKBUDS
Poor Pluto, but lucky us.
I boast a stargazer or two in my household. My son has rocket ship sheets on his bed, glowing stars on his wall and a real telescope my husband props on the balcony when they feel like braving the icy winds off Lake Michigan.
This book didn't last two seconds out of the package before both my little spaceman and my big one were hunched over it, reading, pointing and exclaiming. Something about the hubbub over Pluto really gets amateur astronomers going, and mine aren't the only ones.
In case you've been living on an asteroid, Pluto got bumped from the planet club last year after astronomers decided there were too many other Pluto-esque balls of ice and rock floating around the same neighborhood. It just wasn't special enough after all.
Nothing could make such a phenomenon hit closer than dramatizing it as a personal quest. Rusch cuts through the science and brings us a gripping, highly readable story of one persistent, likable young astronomer determined to find another planet in the Kuiper belt at the very fringes of the solar system.
We follow Mike Brown from his boyhood making moon craters in his muddy backyard to his adult years and the ingenious system he developed to detect new heavenly bodies using an old observatory telescope. How exciting to see his discoveries one by one, laid out in funny side notes that explain their names (he dubbed one "Santa" after the red-suited Christmas visitor) and some weird facts about them. We feel his excitement--and determination--build as he wonders what, exactly, he's stumbled upon.
There's no ending to spoil; Brown's adventures go on and on. Somewhere out there, peering into space, the man who forced a re-examining of certain celestial truths is still happily mapping his piece of heaven.
Rating: *\*\*\
SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL
By John Peters, New York Public Library
This profile introduces readers to Caltech planet hunter Michael E. Brown, who is followed from messy childhood experiments with mud craters in his backyard to his revolutionary discovery of Eris, Sedna, and other transplutonian members of our solar system. Leaving room in the corners for fact boxes about each newly found object, Francis casts him in the cartoon illustrations as a smiling, wide-eyed lad (later man) in casual dress, working (alone, seemingly) with telescopes and PCs in his years-long search, standing nervously to witness the official vote that redefined “planet” in 2006 (“Mike smiled, Astronomers had fixed a mistake. Science had progressed!”), then on the closing pages posing with children who just might go on to make astronomical discoveries of their own. This biography covers new ground for young readers and, packaged with a peel-off mini-poster of the “new” solar system, makes an inspiring, energizing addition to any collection.
SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL
Curriculum Connections
From his childhood fascination with outer space to his planet-hunting efforts as an astronomer, this book tells the story of Mike Brown, whose detection of far-distant objects led scientists to reevaluate the definition of a planet. Sprinkled with out-of-this-world facts, this colorfully illustrated tale is imbibed with the excitement of discovery.