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When the asteroid Polo grows weary of his monotonous life, he leaves his fellow asteroid friends behind to travel the solar system. Inspired by an encounter with a comet, Polo sets out on an adventure of exploration and meets the Sun, its orbiting planets, the planets’ moons, and a few dwarf planets. The Sun is isolated because his intense heat prevents proximity to other celestial bodies. Mercury thrives on competition, while Venus sees the beauty in everything. Earth’s water and atmosphere make her a unique planet capable of sustaining life. Saturn possesses a sense of humor that keeps Polo laughing but isn’t appreciated by all his moons. Courteous Jupiter is surrounded by over ninety moons with diverse personalities and varying degrees of amiability. Polo is determined to make new friends, but he soon realizes that not everyone deserves his friendship. For example, Mars is an aggressive bully orbited by traumatized moons, and Uranus is a bad-tempered planet surrounded by equally bad-tempered moons. Antisocial Neptune has no interest in making friends, and Pluto is disgruntled by his new classification as a dwarf planet.
Albukh delivers an imaginative yet informative tale of interplanetary space exploration perfectly suited for young readers. The author uses personification to create entertaining characters like the lonely Sun, an aggressive red planet, a belching gas giant, a hot-tempered volcanic moon, an antisocial dwarf planet, and a sometimes annoyingly humorous multi-ringed planet. The book uses an age-appropriate writing style to cleverly insert astronomy facts, such as each planet’s composition and number of moons, into an entertaining story that will enable children to have fun while learning. Young readers are encouraged to embrace the spirit of adventure and seek out new experiences but never to take for granted the warmth and familiarity of home or the power of existing friendships.