Out of this World presents detailed information on space exploration and the hunt for alien civilizations in an easy-to-read, magazine-style layout serving up info in readily digestible bites. The engaging content mixes articles and activities – including a recipe for no-bake spaceballs and how to fake your own UFO photograph. An illustrated alien clone – Ambrosia, from the planet Xenon – opens the book with musings about possible life on planets other than her own.

Almonte, Ontario’s Jacob Berkowitz is the best kind of kids’ science writer, able to maintain the tension between the profound and the pedestrian. As in his previous book, Jurassic Poop, an unflinching look at the scatologic side of the fossil record, Berkowitz writes here with competence, humour, and a clear love of science and the art of sharing that love with young readers.

While the tone of the writing is squarely within the 8- to 12-year-old range, the book does not always look the part. Space is a subject well-suited to expansive, visually dynamic layouts. As you would expect, the selected visuals are generally good quality – Hubble telescope images, artistic renderings of potentially life-supporting planets – but they are noticeably underserved by the choppy and vaguely retro page layout and design.