Stephen Hawking to Publish Awesome-sounding New Children's Book

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Co-authored by Hawking and his daughter Lucy, George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt will be published by Doubleday this April. The two Hawkings spoke to New Scientist about the work. Here's what the elder has to say about the motivation behind it:It is extremely important to me to write for children. Children ask how things do what they do, and why. Too often they are told that these are stupid questions to ask, but this is said by grown-ups who don't know the answers and don't want to look silly by admitting they don't know. It is important that young people keep their sense of wonder and keep asking why. I'm a child myself, in the sense that I'm still looking. Children are fascinated by black holes and ask me questions. I find they soon get the idea if it is explained in simple language. And yes, it is nice to think a few of them might grow up and read A Brief History from cover to cover.And what is George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt about? Lucy explains:It's a physics adventure story in which our little hero, George, takes off on a journey across the solar system and beyond. He follows a trail of clues on a cosmic treasure hunt using his neighbor's supercomputer, Cosmos, which opens doorways to the universe. Ultimately, the book addresses the question "Is anybody out there?", which Dad identified as one of three major questions he wanted to deal with in our books for children. The others are "What happens inside a black hole?", the topic of our previous children's book, and "What happened at the Big Bang?", which is what our next book will be about.For those of us who still haven't read or finished A Brief History of Time-whether because of disinterest, fear of commitment, or shear intimidation-this might be a fun place to start.