The Secret Astronomers

By Jessica Walker

Two strangers. One forgotten astronomy textbook. A decades-old secret.

When a recent transfer student starts keeping her diary in the oldest textbook at the Green Bank High School library, the last thing she expects is to receive a response. Thus begins a sweeping tale of unlikely friendship and long-buried secrets between two secret pen pals at a rural West Virginia high school.

Meticulously hand-drawn by debut author Jessica Walker across the pages of an actual ancient astrophysics textbook, The Secret Astronomers is a story of friendship, family, crop circles, secret crushes, giant telescopes, life in Appalachia, and two girls discovering new ways to connect across any divide that separates them.

Grade level: 7-9

Viking Books for Young Readers, 2025, hardcover, 5.81 x 1.06 x 8.56 inches, 304 pages.

ISBN-13: 978-0593692677

Item Weight ‏ : ‎1.67 pounds

Jessica Walker is the Director of Illustration and an Associate Professor of Integrated Design at Parsons School of Design in New York. Her creative practice spans visual art, illustration, and social engagement. Her work can be found on bookshelves, in exhibition spaces, and in her classroom, where she finds joy in teaching emerging artists and designers. Walker’s visual artwork has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions internationally. Her visual artwork draws from the pattern-making and quilting traditions of Southern Appalachia, and her writing explores the cultural politics of rural America.

Walker received her BA in Art History from the University of Virginia and her MFA in Fine Arts from San Francisco State University. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, two tenacious sons, and three, actually, sadly now two pet fish. Reading and making books are among their favorite activities to do together as a family. They make flip books, comic books, graphic novels, and journals at their kitchen table press.