Older Than Dirt #[nn]

A small astronaut floats alongside a progression of planetary forms — from a fiery molten world to cooler gray spheres to the lush blue-and-green Earth we know today — making the 4.5-billion-year story of our planet feel both grand and wonderfully approachable. Don Brown's clean, cheerful linework and bright colors give this 2017 Houghton Mifflin release the feel of a cosmic field trip you'd actually want to take. Subtitled "A Wild but True History of Earth," it's the kind of nonfiction comics experience that makes deep time genuinely fun to think about.