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George's Secret Key to the Universe Review by Adicus Ryan Garton
So my mother sent me this book out of nowhere. I've read Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, and I watched the PBS mini-series Universe (which Mom also bought and sent me out of nowhere), so I thought this book was going to be another reader-friendly non-specialist book about the Stephen Hawking Universe. When I cracked it open, however, page after page of children's fiction met my eye. This is a children's book that deals mainly with our solar system, as experienced by a young British lad named George. I won't go into details of the story except to say that it has the following: a supercomputer, a pig, bullies, a ballerina, the obligatory creepy teacher and hippies. Unfortunately for George, the hippies are his parents. I almost want to say that George's Secret Key to the Universe is written as much for the parents as it is for the children, because there are significant environmental and ethical concerns that drive plot without going into the actual debate, something that I could very easily see as a mechanism to encourage conversation between children and their parents. “Mommy, what's global warming?” That's not a question you can BS your way through (unless you're of the Al-Gore-Is-A-Weiner persuasion). Also, the book is cut through with brilliant pictures of galaxies, the “dark” side of the moon, distant stars, true color images of Saturn, and more. Again, just enough that I can imagine children saying, “What about the other moons of Jupiter? Can we live there?” And the proper parental response should be, “Let's ask Wikipedia!” I think this is probably the best feature of the book. My only problem with the book is that there seem to be few outer space adventures. George himself only takes two. Now if this is a tease ... if Stephen and daughter, Lucy, decide to write more of these books, then I can almost forgive it. But George seems to do a lot of introducing himself, talking to scientists, and lamenting over his environmentalist, vegetarian, anti-technology parents, and I can see that being somewhat slow for the age group that this book would appeal to. It's 297 pages, cut through with 16 glossy pages of pictures and information about solar and galactic phenomenon. If you have children or want an extremely easy on the eyes and mind romp through an asteroid field and more, I highly recommend this book. If all goes well, your girl or boy will be asking you for weeks after how they can be on the first ship to colonize Europa.
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