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PICTURE BOOKS
Hogan, Jamie

Skywatcher

32 pp. | Tilbury | October, 2021 | Trade ISBN 978-0-88448-897-2 $18.95 | Ebook ISBN 978-0-88448-899-6 $17.48
(2) K-3 Tamen longs to "travel the galaxy just like Skywatcher," the hero of a comic he is reading, but when he looks out his city window, or even outside in the park, the stars aren't visible. Tamen's mom (seen earlier in medical scrubs) takes him on a surprise camping trip, where he is finally able to see the stars. Hogan's illustrations are almost all in velvety shades of blue to convey the darkness of the night, except for a pale green Luna moth and the golds and purples surrounding the stars. "This black is SO big, but I feel like I'm part of it," Tamen tells his mom, and she explains that "the atoms in us were forged in stars long ago." The accompanying double-page spread shows mother and son sitting close together, their bodies sprinkled with the same stars that dot the sky. On their return to the city, Mom goes back to working the night shift, but Tamen feels reassured knowing that the stars are still there even though he can't see them. An author's note tells more about light pollution's disruptive effects on migrating creatures, on conservation, and on humans' "ability to see beyond ourselves." A few facts about nocturnal animals and about how readers can become "skywatchers" are also appended.
Reviewer: Susan Dove Lempke | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2022

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