I'm a Black Hole

Journey to the event horizon in this playful, mind-bending introduction to one of our universe’s most mysterious marvels—narrated by a black hole itself.

Lurking at the center of our galaxy and in the farthest reaches of space are black holes. Once unseeable and unknowable, these cosmic devourers—sometimes born from the death of stars—swallow even light itself. What exactly is a black hole? And how do we even know they exist? In a kid-friendly, rhyming narration, the elusive astronomical object introduces itself as both a behemoth star-eater and a shy, rarely-spotted phenomena. Physicist Eve M. Vavagiakis’s approachable text is paired with Jessica Lanan’s imaginative depictions of a young astronaut venturing where no human has gone before, along with stunning renderings of our fascinating narrator and the final frontier. Endnotes expand, spread by spread, on the fascinating science behind black holes and the cutting-edge experiments used to study them. This second entry in the Meet the Universe series will light readers’ curiosity and have them racing to discover more secrets hidden among the stars.Dr. Eve M. Vavagiakis is a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University. A childhood space enthusiast, she now works in experimental cosmology as a part of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, CCAT-prime, CMB-S4, and Simons Observatory collaborations to build instrumentation and study the oldest light in the universe. She also codirects the high-energy physics blog ParticleBites and is the author of the first title in the Meet the Universe series, I’m a Neutrino. Eve M. Vavagiakis lives in upstate New York.

Jessica Lanan is an award-winning author, illustrator, and painter. She is the illustrator of The Lost Package by Richard Ho and Just Right: Searching for the Goldilocks Planet by Curtis Manley. Her author-illustrator debut, The Fisherman and the Whale, was awarded the 2020 Bull-Bransom Award for wildlife art. Jessica Lanan aims to help young readers discover the beauty and diversity of their world by creating picture books that are inspiring, accessible, and memorable. She lives in Boulder, Colorado.