Pluto’s declassification as a planet may have drawn some disappointed murmurs from the grown-ups, but the pain is apparently even more real for a bunch of little school kids.

In his book, “The Pluto Files,” celebrity astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson showcases his collection of hate mail from third graders who were disappointed at Pluto’s reclassification in 2006 to a dwarf planet. The little Pluto fans demanded the immediate reinstatement of their beloved chunk of rock back into the official roster of the solar system’s planets.

The letters start as far back as 2000, when Tyson, as director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, omitted Pluto from a new solar system exhibit because he didn’t consider it a planet.

Seven-year-old Will Gamot immediately noticed the missing exhibit and shot the director a letter with a helpful illustration (see below). Gamot wrote: “You are missing planet Pluto. Please make a model of it. This is what it looks like. It is a planet.”

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Fresh off voting to remove its ethically questionable and impeccably coiffed governor from office, the Illinois senate has moved on to more important matters: making Pluto a full planet again.

In addition to overruling the International Astronomical Union (IAU)’s demotion of the planet (at least within the state), the unanimously-approved bill also designated March 13, 2009 as “Pluto Day,” since Illinois’ own Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto on that date in 1930.

Pluto was downgraded to a dwarf planet in 2006, because it didn’t meet the requirement that a planet clear the area around it of debris due to its gravity. Ever since the IAU’s diss, many people—including astronomers, other state legislators, and ordinary citizens—have criticized the organization’s definition of a planet, which was formulated by only 424 of 2,412 IAU astronomers. The IAU subsequently decided to show Pluto some love by classifying it and all dwarf planets beyond Neptune’s orbit as “plutoids.”

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