Reasons to Look at the Night Sky

A sensitive middle grade novel in verse about a space-obsessed girl who dreams of becoming an astronaut -- and begins to see the world differently when a substitute teacher enters her orbit.

Luna has always loved the night sky. She’s an eleven-year-old who knows everything there is to know about space, and dreams of one day becoming an astronaut. The first step in her plan to get there is to ace the space unit in her science class and secure a spot in NASA’s summer space camp.

But when Luna’s teacher is unexpectedly replaced with a substitute, Ms. Manitowabi, who is looking to shake up science class by bringing in art, Luna’s carefully laid plans are crushed. And that’s not all that’s shifting in Luna’s life -- changes at home and in her friendships have her feeling topsy-turvy. What on Planet Earth is happening?

Reasons to Look at the Night Sky is an endearing, poetic look at the inner world of a middle schooler grappling with change from acclaimed author and illustrator Danielle Daniel.

DANIELLE DANIEL is an acclaimed author and illustrator whose journey in artmaking and book publishing has gone hand in hand with all she has learned -- and continues to learn -- about her Indigenous ancestry and her relationship with the land. Some of her picture books include I’m Afraid Said the Leaf (Summer 2024), Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox (winner of the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award and selected as one of the New York Public Library’s 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing), Sometimes I Feel Like a River and Once in a Blue Moon. Her debut Middle Grade novel, Forever Birchwood, was published in 2022, as well as her first adult novel, Daughters of the Deer. She lives on Manitoulin Island among a large family of cedars, a husk of hares and a fifty-year-old Blanding’s turtle, who visits quite regularly.