You Are Stardust

September 1, 2012

PreS-Gr 2-Bright dioramas created with pen-and-ink, pencil crayon, watercolor, dried flowers, and cut paper fancifully illustrate this exploration of human beings and the world around them. Beginning with stardust, the economical text takes readers from their atoms all the way to their relationship with the natural environment. Each page attempts to shock or surprise: "The water swirling in your glass/once filled the puddles/where dinosaurs drank." "You may sprout even taller/in the spring and summer, just/like the plants in your garden." Readers learn interesting facts about themselves and are urged to make parallels to the planet at large. Meanwhile paper cutouts of children travel from page to page in the mixed-media dioramas, illustrating the text's assertions in a fantastical way. The art and text don't quite come together seamlessly in the book's design, but each one provides much to consider and absorb. While striving to make these big connections in nature, the text presents thoughtful ideas but sometimes anthropomorphizes the animals. An author's note includes a link that explores the science behind the broad statements in the book.-Julie Roach, Cambridge Public Library, MA

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2012
We are made of earth and water and air and stardust, and we are more related to animals and plants than we ever imagined. Everything about us is found in the natural world. Our atoms are from ancient stardust, and the water and salt that flows within us is part of the unchanging cycle that goes back to the beginning of time. We breathe pollen that, when released, may actually create a plant. We grow at night and seasonally shed and grow hair, in similar fashion to animals. We are also a living planet for millions of microorganisms. Kelsey doesn't lecture or overcomplicate the information. She speaks directly to readers in a way that opens minds to big ideas and paves the way for thoughtful questions of their own. The litany of facts comes alive in vivid, descriptive language, lending a philosophical, elegant and mystical aura to current scientific findings. Kim's incredibly unusual illustrations are sublime. Employing varied painting techniques, vivid colors, multidimensional cutouts, unexpected materials and unusual textures, she creates a view of nature that is at once real and otherworldly. This is a work that demands to be read and reread, studied and examined, and thoroughly digested. It is perfect for sparking adult and child conversations about our place in the universe. A remarkable achievement. (Picture book. 5-12)

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January 1, 2013
Grades K-2 Right away, Kelsey gets metaphysical: You are stardust. Every tiny atom in your body came from a star that exploded long before you were born. Cue the whoas. Kelsey then offers multiple examples of how we humans came from nature. Like fish deep in the ocean, you called salt water home. You swam inside the salty sea of your mother's womb. Yes, it's peculiar, as is the assertion that your glass of water is the same water sipped by thirsty dinosaurs. Yet these oddball leaps at marrying the natural world with typical kid thoughts are evocative: Each time you blow a kiss to that world, you spread pollen that might grow into a new plant. Kim's diorama artentire scenes constructed of real flowers, leaves, and other materials inside wooden boxes and featuring characters suspended from stringis photographed with a shallow depth of field, making images more three-dimensional than actual 3-D. Kim's way of literally tying us to nature is as abstract, and as intriguing, as Kelsey's. The jacket flip-side offers how-she-did-it photos of each diorama.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2013
The existential narrative attempts to convey the interconnectedness of living things, beginning with the atom's origins from stardust. Three-dimensional, mixed-media dioramas picture concepts both straightforward ("you learned to speak the same way baby birds learn to sing") and complex ("electricity stronger than lightning powers your every thought"). Back matter fails to elucidate the obscure text for the intended young audience.

(Copyright 2013 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)