Youniverse aims to inspire a reverence for our fragile blue planet voyaging through space. The
lyrical text and simple childlike illustrations linger on one object at a time building a
mind-liberating journey from electrons and photos through atoms molecules cells and the
human body outward to the solar system the Milky Way and the universe and backward to the
beginning of time in the Big Bang. Light weaves through the pages as it weaves the universe
together showing us that we have almost everything in common with a quivering aspen leaf and
the dust of a distant nebula. Your imagination is the greatest of miracles van der Merwe
writes a consciousness that contemplates the atoms and the stars from which it was made. A
child sees a world in a tidepool and an enchanted forest in a copse of trees. Songbirds speak
messages. Moonlight whispers through an open window. The inner and outer worlds flow together
without boundaries. Does growing up have to mean leaving that magic kingdom behind? Lizelle van
der Merwe believes that a child's sense of wonder should instead be encouraged expanded and
immortalized with the real-life magic of science. The more we know about the quantum worlds
within and outside us the more wisdom is evident in a child's view of the world.
