The Stuff of Stars

“A stunning achievement . . . an expressive, powerful creativity of words paired with illustrations so evocative of the awe and magic of the cosmos.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Before the universe was formed, before time and space existed, there was . . . nothing. But then . . . BANG! Stars caught fire and burned so long that they exploded, flinging stardust everywhere. And the ash of those stars turned into planets. Into our Earth. And into us. In a poetic text, Newbery Honor winner Marion Dane Bauer takes readers from the trillionth of a second when our universe was born to the singularities that became each one of us, while vivid illustrations by Caldecott Honor winner Ekua Holmes capture the void before the Big Bang and the ensuing life that burst across galaxies. A seamless blend of science and art, this 2019 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award winner reveals the composition of our world and beyond—and how we are all the stuff of stars.

About the Author

Marion Dane Bauer is an award-winning author of more than one hundred books for young people, including the Newbery Honor Book On My Honor. Formerly on the faculty of the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults, she now writes full-time. Marion Dane Bauer lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

About the Illustrator

Ekua Holmes is the illustrator of two previous picture books: Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement by Carole Boston Weatherford, for which she won the John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator Award and a Caldecott Honor; and Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets by Kwame Alexander, Chris Colderley, and Marjory Wentworth, for which she received the 2018 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award. Ekua Holmes lives in Boston.