title: Stars Beneath Your Bed: The Surprising Story of Dust
author:  April Pulley Sayre 
description: K-Gr. 3. Lowly dust gets a poetic treatment in a picture book that tells all about dust's what and where, and sometimes its why. Using free verse, Sayre explains how dust is made everywhere: "A flower drops pollen. / A dog shakes dirt from its fur. / A butterfly flutters, / and scales fall off its wings." Much of the rest of the text catalogs a litany of dust sources: a crumbling leaf, the smoke from burning toast, ash from a volcano. Perhaps most interesting to children will be the news that dust under the bed may be a part of a comet or a bit of the moon. The watercolors in the well-composed two-page spreads sometimes soar (a wave's spray casting dust), but there are also smaller images, such as dust from a farmer's plow, that are equally effective. Adults will need to help kids with the two-page note about dust and sunsets (dust causes the colors), which will be fascinating news to many. Teachers and parents will find uses for this. <i>Ilene Cooper</i><br /><i>Copyright  American Library Association. All rights reserved</i>
zlib_text: “Oh!” Kyra gasped, folding back the flaps of the box.“Look!”
   
  “What? What?” The younger children crowded close.
   
  Kyra reached out to lift a loop of tinsel. “Decorations,” she said reverently. “For our tree.”
   
  “There’s a heap of stuff.” Robert sounded impressed. “Where’s it come from?”
   
  “They’re old ones from the hospital.” Amy watched as the first of dozens of colored balls and stars were lifted from the box.
  Nobody seemed to notice that the balls were a little dull and that some were chipped. Or that the shiny cardboard stars had
  bent corners. “Actually, it was Mr. Harrington who rescued them from being thrown out.”
   
  Amy had no idea how difficult it might have been for Luke to find time in his busy schedule to do that, but the fact that he had
  gone out of his way at all was amazing. And the way he had offered them to her with that oddly hopeful expression that begged
  for acceptance had been what had tipped the balance.
   
  A moment that had been a pinpoint in time but one that Amy 