Nonfiction That Makes the Grade: Downsized--Pluto from Planet to Dwarf by Elaine Landau

In lieu of an Introduction, Elaine Landau's new Pluto: From Planet to Dwarf (True Books) offers a FIND THE TRUTH! page which begins

Everything you are about to read is true except for one of the sentences on this page.

Which one is true?

T or F Pluto was named by an 11-year-old girl.

T or F Pluto is a planet.

FIND THE ANSWER IN THIS BOOK.

In August of 2006 Pluto was officially downsized and downgraded to the status of dwarf planet, rendering countless science books and millions of styrofoam science fair solar system models obsolete.

Into this breach comes the grandaddy of beginning chapter nonfiction series, Childrens Press True Books to fill the void. Under new management (the overlord Scholastic Press), the venerable True Book (formerly known as New True Books) series is being updated even as Pluto has fallen into the status of solar system benchwarmer.

Actually, in veteran science writer Elaine Landau's hands, even as a lowly dwarf planet Pluto still has quite a bit to recommend it. The author not only provides the usually facts and figures about this far-out body, but includes the Pluto trivia that makes it an intriguing place to visit--as the already launched space probe New Horizons will do in 2015.

Even though Pluto was bumped from the Big Nine (now Big Eight) planets for lack of sufficient gravity to clear its orbit, it boasts an almost horizontal axis, a lopsided, "overly oval" ellipse, three moons, one of which, Charon, at half its size, is big enough so that it and Pluto orbit each other in a curious do-si-do which keeps Charon at a standstill in Pluto's sky. Pluto even has a new neighborhood, the Kuiper Belt, a new acronym as a KBO, or Kuiper Belt Object, and a new big sister, KBO Eris, to hang out with out there.

Landau adds a double-page timeline in the book's midsection, titled The History of the Mystery, and the back matter provides a glossary, an appendix made up of The Statistics, a Resources section, including books, organizations, web sites, and places to visit, and a very detailed index. Wrapped up in 48 pages, with plenty of cool space photos and an Accelerated Reader level of 4.9, that science report is as good as done.

For similar content at level 2.2, see Childens Press's 2008 Pluto: Dwarf Planet (Scholastic News Nonfiction Readers: Space Science) by Christine Taylor-Butler or Capstone's 2008 Pluto (The Solar System) at level 2.1.

Oh, BTW, Pluto was indeed named in competition by eleven-year-old Venetia Burney of Oxford, England, after the Roman god of the underworld. Contrary to popular belief, Mickey Mouse's dog Pluto was named after the (dwarf) planet, not the other way around.