Space Books for Kids
Some of these get the planets in order and actually explain why Mars is red. Others just want your kid to imagine floating past the moon in a cardboard rocket, and both count as a good bedtime here.
The Cat in the Hat whisks Sally and Dick on a rhyming tour of outer space, unpacking facts about the sun, moon, planets, and astronauts along the way.
A NASA rover named Curiosity tells her own story of traveling more than 350,000,000 miles to Mars, where she explores a planet no human has ever visited in search of signs of life.
A stranded kid and a stranded alien end up helping each other home. The Way Back Home by Oliver Jeffers makes space feel less lonely than lost.
A cat who thinks Mars is red because of pepper. Skippyjon Jones Lost in Spice by Judy Schachner turns a space trip into total nonsense on purpose.
A crew of astronauts blasts into orbit aboard a space shuttle, eating ready-to-eat food, floating in zero gravity, taking space walks, and fixing a satellite before returning to Earth.
A Big Mooncake for Little Star by Grace Lin turns moon phases into a bedtime bakery story, one sneaky nibble of Mooncake at a time.
Skip this if you want the classic ball gown ending. Interstellar Cinderella by Deborah Underwood sends her back to the garage to fix rockets instead.
Where the rover book gives you machines, Starry Messenger by Peter Sís gives you the guy who first pointed a telescope at the sky.
A gentle poem asks young readers to remember the sky they were born under, the moon, the sun's dawn birth, and the family and creatures that connect them to the earth.
A boy who loves stars decides to catch one for himself, trying a tall tree and a paper rocket ship before finding an answer in an unexpected place.
Bold geometric shapes and Pueblo-inspired art make Arrow to the Sun by Gerald McDermott look like nothing else on this shelf.
An old man with a grumbling tummy from twenty-one pineapple jelly rolls can't sleep, so he and his cat take a midnight stroll to look at the stars — and find they're not the only ones awake.
If your family already loves quiet, strange conversations more than plot, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry rewards that same patience.
A little boy who loves the tangerine dress in his classroom's dress-up center is taunted by classmates who say dresses are for girls and astronauts don't wear them — until he builds his own spaceship and invites them aboard.
A wide-awake girl insists she can only sleep in a blue room, so her mother brings flowers, tea, and lullaby bells — until moonlight itself swirls in to solve the problem.
