Fatal Attraction! Moon! Earth's Best Friend by Stacy McNulty

While Earth is not exactly a planetary superstar, it does have its following. Asteroids keep in touch. Meteorites drop in from time to time. Comets are predictable, if not frequent, visitors, and there's a family tie that binds Earth to its fellow planet travelers in the solar system. But there is one faithful body that is Earth's true BFF!

LOOK UP!

IT'S ME, MOON!

I AM EARTH'S BEST FRIEND.

WE'VE BEEN TOGETHER SINCE THE BEGINNING.

That's a bit of lunar hyperbole, but Earth and Moon do go way back--about 4.5 billion years, give or take a millennium or two. Of course, space bodies don't always get along when they are young: in fact, Moon owes its existence to a little orbital squabble between Mars and Earth when Mars collided with Baby Earth.

PIECES OF ROCK, CHUNKS OF EARTH, AND EVEN LAVA WERE BLASTED INTO SPACE.

THIS CRASH TRASH CAME TOGETHER TO MAKE ME...

A SATELLITE!

Being the smallest body in the collision and having no choice at the time, Moon dutifully fell into an orbit around Earth and has been its faithful space buddy ever since. In fact, Moon cheerfully took over some of the chores, managing the ocean tides and and helping with daily time- and calendar-keeping, and cheerfully providing a picturesque variety of nighttime lighting.

I'M DEPENDABLE. MY FACE ALWAYS SMILES AT EARTH.

(YOU NEVER SEE MY BACKSIDE!)

In a seriously lighthearted and lightheartedly serious book of science facts about Earth's only satellite, Stacy McNulty's Moon! Earth's Best Friend (Our Universe) (Henry Holt and Company, 2019) is a natural companion to her first science book, Earth! My First 4.54 Billion Years (Our Universe) (read my review here) offers funny and factual books for primary space students which provides a surprising level of information about Earth and its faithful BFF in a large-page format with big comic illustrations contributed by Stevie Lewis that make this book terrific for reading aloud to a group or accessible for young readers on their own. Author McNulty includes colorful bits of myths and facts about Moon (there's no Man--or Rabbit--there) and a short list of scientific and ethnic names for the moon, such as the definition of a "Blue Moon," the Blood Moon, the Wolf Moon, and the micro- and super-moon, as well as the new moon and old moon, and a bibliography appended for further reading. A must-have for school and public libraries' junior science shelves.