Like its predecessor in the Dot to Dot in the Sky series, Stories of the Planets is somewhat deceptively packaged. A quick glance at the cover with its brightly coloured drawings of the first few planets from Venus to Saturn leaves the impression that the book is an elementary introduction to the solar system. It’s only on closer inspection that you see the faint rendition, in blue on blue, of Poseidon using his trident to stir up a storm. These planetary stories are, in fact, the myths of the Greek gods whose names the planets bear. After a couple of short chapters on distinguishing planets from stars, and binoculars versus telescopes, the meat of most of the chapters is descriptions of the major myths associated with the god the planet is named after.

The book is well designed and the text of the book is age appropriate. Lorna Bennett’s appealing illustrations, with the textured look of pastels on canvas, relate well to the stories they accompany. It’s hard to imagine, however, whom this book as a whole would appeal to. The mythology is charming and the stories are clear and well written, if a bit bland. But there’s not enough astronomy to interest any but the most basic learner. The astronomical information is limited to two sidebars per chapter; one explains in point form how to observe the planet, and the other gives, by way of trivia, a few interesting facts about it. At the end of the book is a chart giving the length of each planet’s day, how far it is from the sun, its colour, and how much you would weigh there, if you weighed 45 kg (100 lbs) on Earth. All measurements are given in both metric and imperial units.