Independent Reading Level: Grade level 3-5
Awards and Honor: Learning Teachers Magazine Choice Awards (2010)

This book is part of a series of space adventure stories with a dog named Max. Unlikemost stories, this series emphasizes real science and enriches that with sidebars that detail the science involved. That robust real science extends the reading age bracket upwards through grade school. The sbbk is large, with 11 by 11.3 inch illustrations, something the very young kids will like. Since it is short it is suitable as a bedtime story for those really young kids. The story of Max the dog, going to Mars, is an adventure story and should hold the attention of the older kid and hopefully inspire some to learn more about science, space, and astronomy. Like the earlier Max books, the illustrations are all in color and very well done.

The sidebars are packed with clear and peer-reviewed real science, as known today, not future wishes.

The reader may recognize some of the faces of the characters. I did. To honor people the author commonly puts their likeness in his characters. The last page for example, describes the real Mac dog, from which the main character was drawn.

If you want your kids to be interested and educated in science, get them started with science adventure books like these that adhere to real accepted known science. Story is good and illustrations are the best, and are accurate to what is known. ( )