In the summer of 2012, NASA landed the robotic rover Curiosity on the surface of the planet Mars. This book is Curiosity's story, narrated as if it were by Curiosity itself, starting with "Wherever you are in the world right now, I'm a very long way away. I'm not even on the same planet as you."

Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover details space travel, the mission to discover more about the Red Planet, and the search for evidence of life. In its own "voice," the rover explains how and why it was sent some 350 million miles to explore a planet that no human has ever visited—from its mission, design, launch, and landing — and what it's still doing since landing some six years ago.

The large-format book features spacy, muted, mixed-media pages of illustrations, mostly with sparse text-the images painted in subdued blues and grays, dark like space, images that harken back to earlier pioneering NASA days. At the back of the book is a Mars Rover Timeline that puts timing into perspective, and a glossary that, while scant, is nonetheless helpful. Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover, may prove to be a launching pad for your space- and science-orbital astro-youngster.