Joan's Reviews > Pluto's Secret: An Icy World's Tale of Discovery

This was really well done! It is bright and attractive and presented in a great way: Pluto has a SECRET. What kid isn't going to be somewhat intrigued by a secret? It was really well done, with mention of how some people got upset when Pluto was not a planet anymore but Pluto wasn't upset because people still hadn't learnt its secret. The secret was that Pluto had "friends" it played with in what is now called the Kuiper Belt. There is a great line where Pluto explains to people that it isn't upset at not being a planet because it was the "first example of something new". Now it is known that there are bands of icy planets at the edge of many of the stars in the universe. It closes with the information that Pluto will get its first visitor from Earth, the New Horizons, in 2015 and that Pluto may even still have more secrets to tell us. There is a substantial amount of back matter. There are the copies of original photos showing how Tombaugh was able to identify that there was a new planet as well as a number of other interesting photos, including one of the girl who came up with the name Pluto; a glossary, a who's who, Suggested Reading and a Bibliography; and a note from the Smithsonian Museum on the subject. This is what we need more of: attractive nonfiction for kids, with humor and excitement! Now I need to go look up some titles from the Bibliography!