This retelling of Walt Whitman`s poetry shows a boy who chooses to use his imagination after leaving a lecture. This book is great for talking to kids about choices they can make.

Firstly, the illustrations in this book are beautiful. Loren Long did amazing word. When I heard the Learn’d astronomer is a poem written by Walt Whitman about a boy listening to an astronomer’s lecture. The poem does not rhyme but it uses repetition of the word “when,” which I think helps with the flow of the poem. What I didn’t like about the book is there’s so much space in-between each line of the poem. The book’s structure is a spread with a line on side and a beautiful picture on the other, next is a spread of just a beautiful large picture. Overall, I enjoyed the book of a just one poem. ( )

A little boy goes to a speech about a man that went to the moon. He finds that the speech is boring but he still wants to become an astronomer. ( )

There was a little boy who dreamed of the stars up above. When he went to the museum because an astronomer was going to have a lecture he seemed so excited. In the beginning he was amazed by the charts and figures that showed the proof of the stars, but as the lecture begins he begins to become uninterested and wanders off outside by himself. At the end you can see him looking at those beautiful stars and playing with his rocket in his hand. Probably imagining himself riding around all that universe you can tell the little boy is using his imagination and dreaming of going up in the sky someday. Seems like the little boy is more interested in dreaming about the stars and looking at them than listening to some astronomer talk about his accomplishments. I love the quote they use at the end. Albert Einstein says," Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world". I love this book because it shows you how to dream and it reminds me of myself because I love looking up in the skies in looking at the stars, and imagine my life and dreams coming true. ( )

This book was hard to understand and follow. I was a beautiful picture book with minimum words. It seemed to be a young boy that was bored while listening to the astronomer but was interested in he displays and visual aids. ( )