Let's Look at: OUTER SPACE

Discusses the solar system, the Milky Way, and man's efforts in space study and travel

Grade 2-4 A good subtitle for this would be: ``Topics in the history and future of space exploration, very briefly consid ered.'' Each topic, from ``The Androm eda galaxy'' to ``Using outer space,'' is ``considered'' in a dozen or so lines of large print, with glossary words in bold face (``sun'' but not star, ``Pioneer 10'' but not Viking), superimposed on clear, impersonal, but occasionally dramatic color paintings. Furniss makes value judgments (``So, you can see that space is becoming a very useful place'') and throws numbers about carelessly ``Millions of people'' live on Earth, ``hundreds of stars'' are visible in the night sky, the 236 days that Leonid Ki zim's crew spent in orbit is defined as ``nearly a year.'' Following a recent trend, he does describe the Soviet space program in some detail. At best this can only supplement older intro ductions, such as Jay's Spacecraft (Watts, 1983) or Seevers' ancient Space (Raintree, 1978). John Peters, New York Public Library
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