Traveling into Outer Space
Readers, welcome back to Colleen’s Cozy Book Corner! I’m thrilled you are stopping by! But we aren’t staying here long! This month, we are traveling to outer space to meet one of my favorite Pioneer Valley Books characters: Galaxy Girl! This is the true magic of any book—that when we read, we can go anywhere and meet anyone at all, including someone far-off in the galaxy!! And that is right where we find ourselves when catching up with Galaxy Girl in any of her six books. And why not? Isn’t summer vacation right around the corner?
The books are written by Michèle Dufresne (one of Pioneer Valley Books’ founders) and have been colorfully illustrated by Tatjana Mai-Wyss, who has given the images a dreamy, watercolor quality like we really are floating in space. These books are all about sparking imagination. We see trees with purple leaves, skies the color of rhodochrosite, pets with bubble helmets, and even a space monster… who, thank goodness, turns out to be amicable. Galaxy Girl, with her pale-blue skin and frontal lobe antennae, gliding around her floaty colorful world, is the perfect fantastic alien.
Despite her differences, Galaxy Girl is a lot like us. Her daily life is not unlike those of her earthling readers. In these six stories, we see her practice reading, lose a tooth, eagerly await the space tooth fairy (who is tiny and green), build a tree fort with spacekid friends, and in my favorite book of the set, get an invite to Space Monster’s birthday party—only to find herself pondering the possibility of having to eat kooky monster food! YECCCCH! So why are readers drawn to this lively and winsome blue girl? I think it’s because they have traveled far in their vast imaginations to meet her and find that it was worth the trip.
If you and your students and colleagues would like to make the intergalactic journey to Galaxy Girl’s stellar neighborhood this summer, follow this link.
To meet Galaxy Girl’s equally fantastic friend Spaceboy and continue your journey in the cosmos, click here.
