Nova the Star Eater

K-Gr 2—Roaming the spaceways, gulping stars from red supergiants on down, Nova swallows a juicy yellow dwarf and is taken aback by the storm of protest that rises from a pretty planet nearby: "The Sun is our star!" "The people on Earth need it to survive!" Considering that the snack has made her uncomfortably gassy (at both ends), Nova is more than willing to give it back—but how? Earth leaders from many countries (not, interestingly, including the U.S. or Russia) gather to confer, but even the idea of waiting "until it passes" seems risky. In Kim's big, glowing illustrations human figures are a young, diverse lot and Nova (presumably a black hole, though never identified as such) is portrayed as an immense but nebulous sphere with anthropomorphic features. The winning ploy, suggested by a child, turns out to be tickling Nova with Earthly winds and treetops, plus a very large hand fortuitously carried aboard a human spacecraft. Putting the Sun back where she found it, Nova departs for Orion's Belt and a closing twist ("…is this your star?" "Nurz, zeets nehs." "Fantastic!"), both figuratively and literally dark. Though science truly takes a backseat here, the Earthlings' explanations of what the Sun does for our planet are right-on, and an afterword adds further facts about our local star and fellow planets.