From stardust to stardust, the narrative of a life is spun out in Australian author/illustrator team Mem Fox and Freya Blackwood's picture book, The Tiny Star. Falling to earth one night, a star takes the shape of a tiny baby, is adopted by loving parents, leads a full, long and loving life surrounded by relatives and friends, before passing away—back into stardom. Shining from the celestial heavens, the star gives comfort to the loved ones left behind...

When I first happened upon this book at my public library, I mistook it for a Christmas title for some reason. I'm trying to recall whether it had been mistakenly placed on the Christmas display—I think it had been, but couldn't swear to it. In any case, being on the hunt for new and new-to-me Christmas books, and being a devoted admirer of Freya Blackwood's artwork, I immediately snatched it up and brought it home. I was not all that dismayed to find it wasn't a Christmas story (Freya Blackwood, after all), and was intrigued by the idea of a star living out the life of a human. It brought back memories of my college astronomy class, and the time my professor informed we students that the old hippie belief in humanity being nothing but stardust was in fact scientifically sound, as every atom that goes to make up our world, and us, comes from massive stellar explosions in the cosmic prehistory of our area of the universe.

In any case, I certainly didn't approach this one with anything other than a pleasant expectation of enjoyment, given my fondness for the illustrator, and the fact that author Mem Fox is a titan in children's literature, both Australian and global. Unfortunately, despite all this, The Tiny Star was a miss for me. I found the narrative unconvincing, and even unmoving. Many other online reviewers apparently found it emotionally resonant, and quite poignant, and I can certainly see that this narrative of the seasons of life might evoke such feelings. For me however, I kept expecting there to be something more meaningful, some insight that a star living as a human would give us—something more than just the idea of a long life well-lived, and well-loved. I found myself thinking of Kurt Vonnegut's most unusual Nativity Story, Sun Moon Star, in which the creator of the universe finds himself in a baby's body, and must see the universe in a different way. Here there is none of that—no sense of how the star perceives the world and the cosmos, now that it has become flesh. I also found myself thinking of Marion Dane Bauer's magisterial The Stuff of Stars, in which the author constructs a story beginning with the birth of the universe and concluding with the birth of a baby made of stardust. There the link to stars is deeply meaningful, tying the infinitesimal smallness of a human to the great scope of the cosmos, but here it feels incidental. The human who comes from a star in this story is referred to as "it" throughout, constantly reminding the reader that "it" is a star in human shape, rather than a human (a person, not an object) made of stars. As if to emphasize the star-ness of this person, "it" returns to the heavens after death, leaving no mortal remains, and resuming its status as a star. It is a reversal of the idea of people being made from stardust, and in turn making other stardust creatures and objects, when their bodies return to their constituent elements.

Reactions will vary of course, and some will (and have) found this one meaningful, where I have not. That said, I was so repelled by this book, so unexpectedly put off by the narrative, that I might have given it a two-star rating, were it not for Blackwood's lovely illustrations, which depict a loving, diverse family. Her artwork is always worth the price of entry, so I'm not sorry to have read this one, but I don't really recommend it. Seek out the Bauer, if you are looking for a truly meaningful cosmological baby book, and the Vonnegut, if you want a story about the ties between divinity and humanity. ( )