The Stuff of Stars

Reflecting wonder and awe in her well-modulated voice, Amy McFadden narrates this iconographic-animated adaptation of Marion Dane Bauer’s 2018 picture book, which received the 2019 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for Ekua Holmes’s hand-marbled paper and collage artwork. The lyrical text describes how the universe was born, the stars caught fire, and the dying stars were turned into planets until finally "you burst into the world." Lovely piano and violin accompaniment backs up the artwork that swirls across the screen, beginning with deep dark colors before transforming into brightly hued yellows, oranges, reds, and greens covering all spectrums of the rainbow. The collage images display the planets and stars as well as galloping horses, dinosaurs, wooly mammoths, humans, and plant life, and the sounds of an explosion underscore the big bang theory of the origin of the universe. While the free verse text reminding viewers that everyone is the stuff of stars may not be completely comprehensible to some youngsters, they will nevertheless likely be mesmerized by this imaginative short that introduces the formation of the "fragile blue ball we call Earth." Also featuring a read-along option, this is recommended. Aud: E, P. (S. Beauregard)