Stars Beneath Your Bed

Stars Beneath Your Bed. ISBN: 0-06-057189-6. April Pulley Sayre/ill. Ann Jonas. (2005) Outstanding Science Trade Book for Children and ALA booklist best books of 2001 (award winning author/illustrator of other books). Nonfiction. Ages 4+.

This book reveals the secret of the colors of the sunrise and sunset.......the sun's reflection off of the dust particles in the air. It talks about the many origins of dust, including space, dirt, living organisms, and water. The book explans how dust can last a long time and we may be living among dust from the dinosaurs.

The watercolor illustrations are done in vibrant colors and give us very visual/dramatic images of how dust particles get into the air. Every picture shows the horizon and sun, which is very important because we find out at the end of the book that dust is the reason we see so many beautiful colors in the sky during sunrise and sunset. I love that this book brings science and art together so fluently.

This book could be an introduction to many science topics, including natural cycles, the atmosphere, space/asteroids.

I used this book in my daycare and the children did their own watercolor pictures of the sunset. You could also have them do coffee filter art with watercolors to look like the sunset and put in on construction paper when finished.

The children could also write a story about the life of a dust particle. They could describe where it came from, where it has been, and what it has seen.