"The Speed of Starlight: A Visual Exploration of Physics, Sound, Light and Space" by Colin Stuart and Ximo Abadia (Big Picture Press)

By now, most of you younglings will be kicking off a new school year and perhaps a new voyage of discovery and learning...
This time of year is traditionally when we're buried under a mountain of extremely brilliant non-fiction titles, and this year looks like it's going to be no exception.

Kicking off early are Big Picture Press with a fantastic book that came out in August, and that we're just catching up with now.

"The Speed of Starlight: A Visual Exploration of Physics, Sound, Light and Space" by Colin Stuart and Ximo Abadia is the sort of book that gets us very excited indeed.

We're science nuts, we love space, and we love any branch of science that - at first glimpse - feels like you're performing real-life magic, with amazing forces at your fingertips.

Of course, quantum physics and an understanding of our universe aren't new subjects to children's books - and in fact we're spoilt for choice when it comes to books on the former. But here in "The Speed of Starlight" the approach is to produce a visual learning tome that can be accessible even to the youngest would-be mad scientists!

Somewhere over the rainbow, weigh a pie!

Colin Stuart has taken the approach of ensuring that the book text is kept relatively simple, but doesn't skimp on the details - working perfectly in conjunction with Ximo Abadia's fabulously sharp and clear diagrams and graphics, science suddenly becomes less of a mystery to youngsters who might be doing their first experiments and explorations in school and perhaps at home or in saturday science clubs like C.

Don't be kept in the dark by how eclipses work. It's all explained in this fab book!

The book tackles hefty and diverse subjects such as the way our eyes interpret light and colour, the way solar and lunar eclipses happen and even dips into the methods we are using to further explore our universe.

X-Ray Specs. Who here can honestly say they've never wanted a pair of those?

The book isn't just for space nuts, it really does dig deep into various branches of physics, hopefully setting kids up for a lifelong interest in the subject in a cool and exciting way.

A really intriguing and absorbing science book to kick off the new school year? Yep we're down for that!

"The Speed of Starlight: A Visual Exploration of Physics, Sound, Light and Space" by Colin Stuart and Ximo Abadia is out now, published by Big Picture Press (kindly supplied for review)