Agnes Giberne's friendly tour of the heavens for beginners (new and revised edition, 1893): the Sun and its family of planets, the Moon, comets and shooting stars, then the stars, clusters, nebulae and the Milky Way. 31 guides for children about 9 to 12 cover the whole book, with the right page beside each one, safe things to try, and short notes on what we know now.
Turn this on to see every lesson as a simple checklist: what to get out, what to do and what to say, one line at a time.
How to use it
A little, often. One guide is one session of 25 to 40 minutes. Two or three a week covers the book in about a school term or two.
Look up as you go. Start a Moon diary in Part I and keep it going, and watch for the planets and stars each chapter names. A free planetarium app or website helps you find them; cloudy weeks are fine, just catch up later.
Never look at the Sun. Not even for a moment, and not through sunglasses, smoked glass, binoculars or a telescope. The guides show the Sun safely with a pinhole or a colander, and the book's own old advice about darkened glass is marked as unsafe.
What we know now. The book is from 1893. Most of it holds up well, but numbers of moons, what sunspots and nebulae are, and why the Sun shines have changed. Each guide adds short notes so you can read the book as written and still teach today's science.
Faith and science. Each chapter opens with a Bible verse, and the author often speaks of God as Creator. Read these as your family wishes; the guides keep to the astronomy.
Old words. The author writes 'billions' in the old British sense (a million millions, an American trillion) and calls the Sun 'he' and the Earth and Moon 'she'. The guides point these out where they matter.
Part 1 Part I: Our family in the sky, and its neighbors
The Earth as one planet among many, the Sun, gravity, day and night and the seasons, the planets, the Moon, comets, meteors, and the first steps out to the stars. Lessons 1–12.
1893 revised edition (first published 1879) · About ages 9 to 13
Agnes Giberne's “astronomy for beginners”, a friendly tour of the Sun, the Moon, the planets and the stars, written for children and grown-ups alike. Revised by the author to bring it up to date in 1893.
Guides follow the book's three Parts and their chapters in order; the book's own chapter is shown beside each title, and a few long chapters are split into two sessions. The guides are written for this site; the book is in the public domain.