Genre: Poetry
Reading Level: Primary

Summary: Filled with poems about space, children will learn about astronauts, planets, the moon, stars, and zero gravity. Along with the fun poems, facts about each subject are included in the margins.

Evaluation: Out of This World was a fun book to read because of the format of the poems. For example, the poem called Zero Gravity has upside down words for emphasis. The Black Hole poem does the same type of thing, but it swirls its words into a black hole. The figurative language that accompanied the poems was terrific. Just by reading the words, you could imagined what the pictures would look like. On the other hand, illustrator Stacey Schuett did an awesome job. The pictures are great and compliment the poems perfectly. For each poem, author Amy E. Sklansky wrote factual information in the margins to help make sense of the information being portrayed in the poems.

I used this book for a non-fiction vs fiction unit with grades K-6. I loved how these poems were both informative and factual but also fun. Many different types of poetry form were used and the illustrations were lovely. Fun to compare this book to Pluto Visits Earth and to show how the difference between nonfiction and fiction isn't always black and white. ( )

Good mix of basic information and verse. ( )

Poetry about space is a great concept, especially when paired with sidebars explaining background information. "Out of this World" left me wanting more though. The poetry varied between the thought provoking and illuminating poetry that I desired and the others that felt stilted. The illustrations were similar for me...portions were appealing and other illustrations left me cold. This room for improvement could make this book a great jumping off point, by providing the reader with ideas to build and improve on. ( )