Saturday Review: “Introducing children to the wonders of the universe” a review by Mark I. West of Allan Wolf’s children’s book The Blanket Where Violet Sits (2022) in NCLR Online Spring 2025.
We are pleased to review more children’s books, which are now their own category of the UUAW Literature for Young People Award. West is no stranger to this genre, either as critic or as a parent reading them to his own children. He writes, “Wolf taps into children’s natural curiosity about the cosmos, but he also keeps his story grounded in the day-to-day life of children. Just as my son related the fate of our planet to his favorite restaurant, Violet combines stargazing with eating a night-time picnic in a park.”
The children’s book is filled with images of the universe imagined by a young child. West shares, “Lauren Tobia’s lush illustrations perfectly capture the sense of wonder that Wolf evokes with his poetic descriptions of our universe.” The story is “intended for young children, and for this audience Wolf’s cozy exploration of the universe makes for a perfect bedtime story.”
Read the entire review in the NCLR Online Spring 2025 issue! Order the book here!
