If you had to think about it, you could probably make a neat list of problems-kids-have that are resolved in picture books.

But here’s a problem that might not be top of that list: just how do you feel good about yourself when your older sibling is utterly, frustratingly, maddeningly perfect? This is our narrator’s problem in Nosy Crow’s Stardust created by Jeanne Willis and BRiony May Smith.

Stardust follows a young girl as she tells us how her big sis seems to get everything right and is always everybody’s ‘star’. Little sis just never seems to get the praise her big sister does and Jeanne Willis’ sparse prose and short sentences let us know just how flat that makes her feel. Then, one day, granddad explains to little sister that she, too, is a star – because we are all made of stardust and so we all shine in our own way.

The message is a lovely one, and is conveyed by way of a tour through the birth of the universe. There’s a lot of joy here for readers who like cosmology, although not so much for creationists. And for readers who are as beguiled as I am by anything remotely suggestive of moony magic or starry skies, this is an instant pleasure.

Briony May Smith’s characters are as wide-eyed and joyous as always, and her landscapes have an other-worldly feel. Stardust is a twinkly trip into the magic of being human and unique.

What I love best about Stardust is its celebration of the role grandparents take in little ones’ lives.

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