Review Detail

Cosmic Collisions: Asteroid vs. Comet

Middle Grade Non-Fiction 172

Scientific Space Shenanigans

June 01, 2024

Overall rating

4.3

Writing Style

4.0

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

4.0

Learning Value

5.0

Can we live on Mars? Is Pluto a planet? Star Wars vs. Star Trek? There's no shortage of geeky, space related questions that tweens readers can ponder, and Asteroid vs. Comet offers new opportunities for scientific thinking. In order to really calculate things properly, we first meet both an asteroid, in the Asteroid Belt, and a comet, in the Oort Cloud. We find out that while asteroids are hot, comets are cold, and learn the speeds, weights, and composition of the competing bodies. The two rarely collide, but this is a fun speculation.

This is not quite a comic book (although it is a comet book!), but a nicely sized nonfiction book with lots of illustrations. Each topic is approached with a page from both the asteroid and the comet point of view, and the text is very readable. Words and ideas are nicely explained, and I was able to understand the scientific concepts. There is definitely an air of suspense in this, which is hard to create in a science related nonfiction book, and I won't ruing the ending and tell you who survived the hypothetical collision!

Good Points

While some young readers love nonfiction and don't want to read anything else, it can be a challenge to get some readers to pick up books with facts. This is a perfect length, and is highly engaging. The pictures help, and I can see this being a book that I can recommend to my students who need to include some science themed nonfiction books in the mix, even if they aren't wanting to pick them up.

I love when young readers have specific interests, and space is a topic that frequently sparks readers to search for information. Regas' 1,000 Facts About Space Aldrin and Dyson's Welcome to Mars: Making a Home on the Red Planet, Lowery's Everything Awesome About Space and Other Galactic Facts!, McAnulty's Where Are the Aliens, and Drimmer's Can't Get Enough Space Stuff.