Fiction: 
       Here's a list of great fiction books recommended to stimulate your kids' imagination and interest in the solar system:

Elementary school:

• Daniel Pinkwater series (here are some titles, there are too many to put all of them): 
  He's a funny and inventive writer with a little odd stories. They are imaginative and will get your kids to have bigger imaginations. 
  • Fat Men in Space by Daniel Pinkwater
    This funny adventure book, will have your kids squealing! It's very imaginative and soon they'll be wanting radio teeth. It also encourages eating healthy foods because all the fat men from space have eaten it all!
  • Ned Feldman, Space Pirate
  • Mush, a Dog from Space
  • Guys from Space
  • Spaceburger
  • Alan Mendelshon, the Boy from Mars
    
• The Fallen Spaceman by Lee Harding
• Magic School Bus Goes to Space by Joanne Cole
  An informative and yet somewhat adventurous book, on the journeys of Mrs. Frizzle's class through the solar system.

top...

Middle school:

• Douglas Adams Series
  A very fun and exciting series, starting from the Earth being blown-up, to custom ordered planet to mice doing experiments on people and dolphins being extraterrestrials, and before the earth is they give everyone a perfectly crafted glass bowl that says "So long, thanks for the fish." 
  • Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
  • So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
  • The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
    
• Bruce Coville Series My Teacher is an Alien by Bruce Coville.
  Another great series of books, it will stimulate any reader's imagination and think twice about TV (TV was planted on Earth to slow the pace of humans getting far into space by melting the kids' brains) and about how humans would match up in a moral hygiene test.
  • My Teacher Fried my Brains
  • My Teacher Glows in the Dark
  • My Teacher Flunked the Planet

  top...

High School:

• 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
  A classic science fiction book, one of the firsts, still has a great plot. This book was also made into a movie, another classic.
• The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
  The "right stuff" are the qualities that make a man the best, and for astronauts they had to have all the "right stuff". Competition between countries in the race for space, between the people, between airplane pilots and between the astronauts compete throughout this book.
• The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

top...

Non-Fiction:
      Fiction is not true, so there is the non-fiction section and reference section. Here are some great non-fiction books on the planets and the cosmos:

Elementary School:

• The Search for Planet X, written by Margaret K. Wetterer. 
  Contributors to this book include Dr. Henry Giclas of the Lowell Observatory who still works there and who knew both Clyde and his sister well. The book is published by Carol Rhoda Books, Inc., Minneapolis, 1996, 48 pages. It is written for 3rd and 4th graders and includes sketches of Clyde's cat "Pluto" who was was with him since 1990.
• solar system series by Seymour Simon. 1st and 2nd grade. Lots of big pictures. 
  published by Morrow Junior Books, New York. 
  • Mercury
  • Venus
  • etc...
• Isaac Assimov's New Library of the Universe. Pretty high level topics for elementary school, but the writer, Isaac Assimov is one of the smartest people in the world, so what do you expect? For 3rd and 4th graders. Published by Gareth Stevens Publishing. 
  • Nearest the Sun: The Planet Mercury
  • The Ringed Planet: Saturn
  • Planet of extremes : Jupiter
  • A distant puzzle : the planet Uranus
  • The red planet : Mars
  • The sun and its secrets
  • Our planetary system
  • etc...

top...

Middle School:

• Planets X and Pluto by William Graves Hoyt
  for other points of view regarding the search for the ninth planet. published by The University of Arizona Press, 1981
• The Planets by McNab, David, and James Younger. 
  Full of pictures about the planets from the Hubble space telescope and very pretty, but information is pretty general and not at a high level. This book is meant to be read from front to back, not suited for reference. Published by New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999. 

• For other points of view regarding the search for the ninth planet, the reader is invited to read William Graves Hoyt's book Planets X and Pluto, published by The University of Arizona Press, 1981

• "The Search for Planet X by Margaret K. Wetterer.  Contributors to this book include Dr. Henry Giclas of the Lowell Observatory who still works there [Lowell Observatory] and who knew both Clyde [Tombaugh] and his sister well. The book is published by Carol Rhoda Books, Inc., Minneapolis, 1996, 48 pages. It is written for 3rd and 4th graders and includes sketches of Clyde's cat "Pluto" who was with him since 1990."

• "A Double Planet?: Pluto & Charon (Isaac Asimov's New Library of the Universe) by Isaac Asimov, Isaac Asimov, Greg Walz-Chojnacki, Frank Reddy. Discusses the smallest, most distant, and most mysterious planet in our solar system, its discovery, its peculiar orbit, and its recently discovered satellite."

• "Pluto and Charon by Alan Alan Stern (Editor), David J. Tholen (Editor), S. Alan Stern (Editor). This 756 page book has an extensive collection of scientific information from a description of the discoveries of Pluto and Charon to composition, internal structure and thermal evolution to chemical models of Pluto's atmosphere and interaction with the solar wind. Read the extensive table of contents for more details."

top...

High School:

• The Universe. Text book. Editors: Kaufmann and Freedman. 
  This text books is very elaborate and tells you everything you need to know about looking at the stars and cosmos. Also teaches some of the physics involved with the Universe. Also includes a CD-ROM with "Starry Night." Published by the W.H. Freeman and Company, New York. 
• The New Solar System. by Faith Vilas and Ed. J. Kelly Beatty, Carolyn Collins Peterson, Andrew Chaikin. 
  This book is like a text-book but doesn't include activities and physics of the universe. Has a lot of information on the planets and their satellites. published by Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, Massachussets, 1999. 
• Jupiter-the Giant Planet byReta Beebe 
  This is a very in depth book all about Jupiter. Published by: Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C. 1997.
• Venus Revealed  by David Harry Grinspoon. 
  Also a very in depth book just about Venus. Published by: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc.New York; Reading, Massachusetts; Menlo Park, California; Don Mills, Ontario; Harlow, England, 1997.

top...