My soon to be 12 year old son has been mad about space for years. He reads ALL the books and watches documentaries. He craves knowledge and is fascinated by facts. He loves maths and statistics. He loves trivia and anecdotes. He has an amazing memory and remembers everything that he reads. The boy is amazing and his depth of knowledge and understanding about the things that matter to him and spark his curiosity never ceases to amaze me. Feeding him books is a full time job and one that I love. He loves books that are packed with facts, presented with gret graphics and injected with humour. He likes books that teach him things and make him laugh. Books like How To Teach Grown Ups About Pluto.
How To Teach Grown Ups About Pluto is an utterly brilliant book for space enthusiasts to polish up their planet knowledge and to help them and their grown ups understand why Pluto is no longer a planet. This is a book packed with facts and laced with humour. We laughed out loud a lot while reading this handy and hilarious guide designed to get readers up to speed with the latest scientific thinking on the solar system. This book explodes with fascinating facts about astronomy, the history of planetary discoveries and explains why Pluto is definitely not a planet. We love the design of this book for older readers and have all learned so much from it.
From cover to cover this book is clever, creative and crammed with cutting edge space science.
William and I are so pleased to be part of this blog tour and super excited to share a guest post from author and astronomer Dean Regas telling us why children should be the ones to teach grown-ups about space science. I know that my William has taught me so much about the solar system and much much more.
Why children should be the ones to teach grown-ups about space science
First, I think that most kids know way more about astronomy than most adults. Not only are students learning in school about the latest discoveries in space, many children go through a “space stage” where they learn everything they can about the universe. For some kids that involves exploring the planets. For others its moons of the solar system, or stars, or galaxies. I have had a lot of children teach me about things they are learning. It usually starts off with, “Hey Mr. Dean, did you hear about the new _________ astronomers discovered?”
I share that same sense of wonder whenever I learn something new. I guess I’m still a big kid at heart. And I always found that I learned the most by teaching others. When I hear something cool I love sharing that with other curious students.
The field of astronomy is so dynamic and discoveries are happening literally every day, that even I need help to keep up. And kids do that a lot better than adults.
In fact, this difference in knowledge inspired my book. Many times, I experienced students telling me everything that was exciting to them about space, and then… an adult interrupted with, “Pluto should still be a planet!”
First, rude. Second, I have sympathy for the grown-up who grew up with Pluto being a planet. I was one of them. But there is so much more to the debate, so much that went into the decision to reclassify Pluto. I decided that I needed to write a guide for frustrated and spacey students to walk their grown-us through this change. In fact, for the kids’ benefit, I include, the five stages of grief that grown-ups are going through. (And in just a few short weeks that the book has been out, I have gotten all five stages of grief directed toward me from those grown-ups!).
So, with their knowledge and enthusiasm, children can be the ultimate teachers. I know that for many adults, learning the nine planets was the one thing that they remember from astronomy class all those years ago. I am hoping that when young people explain to them all the new discoveries that have been made – less of what was lost. but instead what has been found – that maybe, just maybe grown-ups can learn something new too.
HOW TO TEACH GROWN-UPS ABOUT PLUTO by Dean Regas, illustrated by Aaron Blecha out now in hardback (£9.99, Britannica Books)
Really enjoyed reading this Jennie. I too am of the Pluto was a planet generation! I loved the style Dean Regus has written in for the blog post so I’m very excited to read the book – love the humour but with a serious tone.