The Ever-Changing Earth

Earth’s mutations provide shape to this meandering portrait of the “ever-changing” planet and the many life-forms it has supported over time. An East Asian–presenting, dinosaur-loving child named Kûn anchors the tale, which opens with, in the place where Kûn now lives, the long-ago “wild beat of pterosaur wings,” the mountain-shaking roar of T. rex, and an asteroid that silences almost everything. Rewinding to Earth’s beginnings, awe-inspired text tours readers through the event that created the planet’s moon, the appearance of the first single-celled life, and a seemingly endless winter that leaves the globe “spinning in space like a huge snowball.” Informative passages about Earth’s molten core lead to a description of the northern lights (“Particles streaming from the sun collide with the magnetic field generated by Earth’s core”), regarded by a pale-skinned girl named Solveig who floats in a pool—alone, but also “connected” to Kûn, who remains in a garden half a world away. Soft-edged digital artwork fills pages with visions of planetary grandeur—from sublime cliffs to opaque ocean depths—aptly reflecting the prose. Ages 4–8. (Apr.)