Biography, Mentor Text, STEM: THE FIRE OF STARS

Chronicle Books, 2023

I've admired and learned from blogs posted by  author Kirsten W. Larson going all the way back to one earliest piece about creating curious kids. That was in 2012, near my own launch of this blog. Her most recent picture book, THE FIRE OF STARS: The Life and Brilliance of the Woman Who Discovered What Stars Are Made Of, is illustrated by Katherine Roy with enlightening brilliance in matching the text language with the  structure of the visual spreads and sidebar narrative.

One look at the cover hints at what I mean by the inspired art design and illustration. Loose-lined, fluid biographic art reveals moments in  astrophysicist Cecilia Payne's progression from curious child to groundbreaking investigator, astronomer, professor, and award-winner as one of the rare woman scientists of her time. Her discovery confirmed what, exactly, those sparkly dots in the night sky were made of. But the astronomical art is as precise and awe-inspiringly accurate as NASA slides! The two styles in combination offer a mirror to the parallel text approach using brilliant brief phrasing to describe the spawning/birth/maturity cycle of new stars on each page with simple and crisp narrative descriptions of Cecilia's path from childhood to her paradigm-changing discovery and beyond. You truly must read this fully to recognize how suitable the two visual and text narrative arcs reflect the processes of "coming of age" as stages in an elaborate process, not simplistic steps. This single spread interior page is just a whisper of many glorious examples throughout:

Chronicle Books, THE FIRE OF STARS, interior.

For centuries the assumption was that stars were made of the same materials as planets. The possibility that it could be something else was rarely even considered, except by Cecilia. She not only wondered and gathered data, she identified proofs for her radical theory within existing data that others had viewed for other purposes and without the imagination and flexible thinking of this curious, persistent woman.

Even if the question of how stars form is not a priority for you, I'm asking you to trust that the material in the hands of such a skilled writing and creative team will fascinate and inspire you. If you already are  a night-sky-wonderer, I'm certain you'll be "over the moon" about this one!  Please give this new picture book a look, and let's give Cecilia Payne the starry spotlight she deserves.