Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei | 
 enlarge | Creator: Peter Sis
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Category: Book
List Price: $6.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  21 reviews
Sales Rank: 32051
Media: Paperback
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 40
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 11.7 x 8.8 x 0.2
ISBN: 0374470278
Dewey Decimal Number: 520.92
EAN: 9780374470272
ASIN: 0374470278
Publication Date: September 1, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
The story of Galileo is at once inspiring and troubling. The brilliant astronomer was a celebrated scientist who was showered with honors and patronage until his greatest discovery--that the earth circled the sun rather than the other way around--proved to be too much of a threat to prevailing orthodoxy. Peter Sis, author of the wonderful children's book Follow the Dream: The Story of Christopher Columbus, tells Galileo's tale for children ages 8 and older. A brilliant and sophisticated illustrator and a sensitive storyteller, he traces Galileo's life from childhood to his final days as a prisoner of the church. (Click to see a sample spread. 1996 by Peter Sis. Reprinted by permission of the publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.) (Ages 8 and older)
Product Description
"If they had seen what we see, they would have judged as we judge." -- Galileo GalileiIn every age there are courageous people who break with tradition to explore new ideas and challenge accepted truths. Galileo Galilei was just such a man--a genius--and the first to turn the telescope to the skies to map the heavens. In doing so, he offered objective evidence that the earth was not the fixed center of the universe but that it and all the other planets revolved around the sun. Galileo kept careful notes and made beautiful drawings of all that he observed. Through his telescope he brought the starts down to earth for everyone to see.By changing the way people saw the galaxy, Galileo was also changing the way they saw themselves and their place in the universe. This was very exciting, but to some to some it was deeply disturbing. Galileo has upset the harmonious view of heaven and earth that had been accepted since ancient times. He had turned the world upside down.In this amazing new book, Peter Sis employs the artist's lens to give us an extraordinary view of the life of Galileo Galilei. Sis tells his story in language as simple as a fairy tale, in pictures as rich and tightly woven as a tapestry, and in Galileo's own words, written more than 350 years ago and still resonant with truth.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 16 more reviews...
 another great one from sis May 1, 2008
Sis is a genius and of all his books I've read with my kids we've loved all of them. Starry Messenger is no exception to his string of hits. His books--ignoring for a moment those like Fire Truck that are basic and seemingly by another author--tend toward the baroque. If one has a strong aversion to busyness then Sis won't appeal to them.
For the rest of us, each page of his books is a wonder. Some critics are correct that he can take his dense aesthetic too far (and he can be too high level for the age group he targets), but mostly the illustrations are beautiful, magical. I have the 2000 edition of Starry Messenger and the narrative text is not difficult to read at all. Other reviewers complain about the readability of the hand written "marginalia" text, but the text to which they refer is more there to flesh out the page visually than to be read: In one case the words are in the shape of an eye. These words are more like interesting background for a reader who wants more information. I don't think that the Shakespeare quotation, for example, should or need be read to children in the middle of the narrative. These are easy to skip and hinder the reading in no way.
Regarding criticisms about whether this text is a definitive children's Galileo biography, I have to smile when I think about my four year old's enjoyment of the book. I suppose if his kindergarten teacher gives him a pop quiz on the astronomer next year he may get a C. (Ditto these comments for my 8 year old.) But his sense of enjoyment and visual edification will be beyond the experience with any other children's book on GG. Bottom line: it's a book for 4 - 10 year olds and succeeds wonderfully with that, not to mention for their parents.
 Beautiful, but very hard to read! November 16, 2007
Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei is a gorgeous book, full of glorious illustrations that children with patience who like hidden detail will find engrossing. Unfortunately, the book is shy on text. Much of the more important text, especially the words of Galileo himself, is printed in a very hard to read cursive script, oddly sprinkled on the page in a way that often requires the book to be turned sideways, upside down or even round and round.
This would not be my first-choice biography of Galileo if I could have just one.
 SPIRAL downward in my estimation, as well as voiced by other readers. March 24, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I love history.
I love Biblical history.
It seemed as if the illustrator had a "proverbial gun to their head" to get all the text into "X" amount of pages --
thereby printing it every "which way" in order to accomplish this feat.
It wasn't "cute" nor CLEAVER having to read spirals -- in a book that has so much GOOD INFORMATION --
that NOVELTY need not be included!!!
Due to this need for attention -- my score for this book which had been a five star rating did a nose-dive down to one star.
I went to a librarian's meet, where this was a "must read" and in the discussion attended by 30+ librarians, they indicated the "same thought!"
(If there is ever a) next edition -- think twice!
Would you like to swing on a star? Carry a moonbeam home in a jar? November 15, 2005
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
I've reviewed a fair amount of Peter Sis books in my day on Amazon.com, but this is the first book by Sis that I've come across that has so many negative/tepid reviews. Now, before I review a book I give its Amazon.com page a once-over to get a feel for what the public at large thinks about the story. Peter Sis is one of those authors who can write extraordinarily simple books for little children (like "Komodo", "Madlenka", or "Fire Truck") then turn around and do mind-bendingly complex picture books in the same breath (like, "Tibet: Through the Red Box", and "Tree of Life"). "Starry Messenger" was one of Sis' first forays into this combination of complex and simplistic together. As you can see, it wasn't wholly successful. Though still a visually eye-popping wonder and a tale that makes equal concessions to both young and old readers, the story sacrifices fact for simplification in ways that not everyone will enjoy. I believe that while this book is a necessary addition to any Galileo collection, it should certainly not be the ONLY book on that starry-eyed scientist available to your children.
Right from the get-go we are told that the whole notion of the earth moving around the sun is a bit new. People (and here we are shown a lovely Ptolemaic System of the universe) thought the planets, the moon, and the sun moved around the earth. There's a sudden and brief glimpse on the next page of The Copernican System, but the text tells us that Copernicus never published this idea and that, "it would take someone else to do that...". Enter, someone else. Someone else by the name of Galileo Galilei. Born on February 15, 1564 when Italy was just a quilt of city-states, little Galileo grew up with a healthy scientific curiosity. He invented things, became a young professor, and heard about a remarkable new instrument that would allow the viewer to see far away things near. Being a bright young man, he made his own instrument and pointed it upwards. He sketched the moon, made maps of the heavens, and was the toast of the town. Then The Church took note of his ideas, disliked them heartily, convicted him of heresy, and kept him under house arrest for the rest of his life. Three hundred years later the Church pardoned him. Happy ending for all. The end.
Now, you cannot say that this is one of Sis' more straightforward books, because it isn't. Though certainly his later works contain just as much sheer factual knowledge, "Starry Messenger" doesn't organize its information particularly well. In an attempt to bring the older information together with the younger, Sis will put info for little children at the bottom of a page in large letters and leave the older info at top or mid-page in a kind of squiggly cursive writing. The illustrations, for their part, sometimes apply to both the older and the younger text, and then sometimes have absolutely nothing to do with what has already been written. For example, on the pages that describe Galileo's desire for a newfangled telescope, the older text includes a translation of Galileo's words, the younger text speaks of how the man made his own, and the pictures are an odd hodgepodge of maps, the travels of telescopes, some odd visions of Flanders, and a kind of historical amalgamation of faces, figures, and historical references. It's beautiful to look at. It's hell to understand.
The main objection to "Starry Messenger", as I see it, comes from the book's shaky discussion of why exactly The Church was so upset with the man's ideas. The book says, "he has gone against the Bible", which isn't really true. That was just an interpretation. Still, it leaves the reader a bit confused over whether or not Galileo's conviction was justified or not. Also, factual references, bibliographies, and timelines are non-existent here. Kids doing reports would have to shift through a myriad of oddly hidden dates tucked away on every other page to get the info they need. The book also never makes it clear when it was that Galileo decided to publish the idea that the earth moves around the sun. Suddenly he's been dragged in front of the Pope, and we have no idea why (though the text offers clues). Tis odd.
There is much to like here, of course. The art is just gorgeous. When Galileo stands before the Pope's court, a sea of astrological figures (Pisces, Taurus, Capricorn, etc.) swim about him, like a whirlpool threatening to suck him down. Most people will not notice this, but one of the nicest elements of the hardback version of this book are the endpapers. The first two endpapers show a city that we may take to be 17th century Italy with a tiny Galileo staring through his telescope at the stars. Along the edges of the paper are small scenes in which countless civilizations (from Eskimos to Easter Island) stare up at the flickering sky. The back endpapers initially look the same as the front, but closer inspection reveals that we are suddenly looking at a modern city. Another little figure stares up at the night sky, but this time from a high-rise. Along the edges of the paper are far more contemporary scenes of submarines, airplanes, and high-speed trains. The implication seems to state that any child today can be a modern-day Galileo if they so choose. The choice is theirs.
So this isn't the best Galileo book out there, no. But is it without merit? Not at all! Different books have different functions. If you want a story to read to your child that gives them some basic info on Galileo (and you're willing to fill in the missing pieces yourself) then by all means hand them "Starry Messenger". If, on the other hand, your fourth-grader has just announced that they have a ten-page paper on Galileo due tomorrow and they needs some information immediately.... this book is not for you. It's flawed, sure, but also a visual stunner. A lovely work that shows the scope of Peter Sis if not his storytelling at its best.
Beautiful and Innaccurate June 19, 2005
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
This absolutely stunning book is simple, difficult and innaccurate. Sounds contradictory? It is.
If one were to read the large text, this book is highly oversimplified. Cursive writing weaves through the illustrations that is more complex, too difficult to read by the intended audience of a child's picture book. In the main text, Galileo is purported to have beliefs that were against the BIBLE. Galileo's beliefs were not against the teachings of the Bible, rather the viewpoint of the church at that time, which was significantly misguided and following a carnal path during that period.
As an artist, I am sad to have to give thumbs down to this artistically beautiful book.
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