By Matt Roeser

Art by Brad Woodard

Usually, when I get a picture book manuscript submission, the file is attached as a Word document. But that was not the case with this project, which arrived as a fully-formed sketch dummy even though the writer is not an illustrator. No, Mr. Roeser is a brilliant book designer, and he had a vision for the story of Astro, an ornery asteroid who is knocked out of his orbit and sent on a thrilling ride through space, a vision that involved this space poster, created by Mr. Woodard, an artist and graphic designer. Matt took elements from the poster, slapped faces on some of them, and paired the images with his hilarious text. The result was brilliant, and I very happily acquired Matt's text, and shortly thereafter, hired Brad to do the artwork.

Besides being an incredibly fun read-aloud featuring a truly memorable protagonist--Astro is part Comics Book Guy from The Simpsons, part Lady Grantham from Downton Abbey--the picture book is a great learning tool as it includes a number of fun space facts.

The wonderful Lizzy Bromley oversaw the design of the book with Matt's thoughtful input. 

For more information and to buy the book, click here.

"The illustrations here steal the show: a gray-blue Astro pops against a black background, and his deadpan, nonplussed facial expressions pair wonderfully with the dryly funny text."--Booklist