Space Case by Stuart Gibb is a very exciting book. It's sequel, Spaced Out was published last week, but I had to read the first before I can read the second. I wrote in an earlier post that my son, who is a reluctant reader, liked this book and now I know why. It's got everything little boys love- space travel, robots, science, mystery and quite a few sentences devoted to using the bathroom on the moon.
Dash Gibson's family was selected to be one of the first families to live on the moon in a brand new colony. Unfortunately, living in space isn't as exciting as he had hoped. The base is small, the food is terrible, there isn't really a lot for a 12 year-old boy to do until the colony's top scientist dies, and Dash sets out to prove he was murdered. Of course NASA doesn't want the world to know that the new colony might be dangerous, so Dash must quickly and cleverly discover the truth on his own.
Set in 2040 this book was really neat. Just reading about the technology had me humming The Jetson's theme song. I've sometimes thought about what it would be like to live on the moon and this book gave me a clear picture of what that might look like. Additionally, there was one humdinger of a cliffhanger! I'm glad I read this today so I can buy Spaced Out tomorrow to see what happens next. While the story is quite intriguing, and I would love to recommend this to a young audience, there are some themes that might be a bit scary (the murder mystery being number one). I would have to say this one is for 4th grade and up.
If I suddenly found a magic pencil that could give me all the answers to every question that came to my mind I would simultaneously want to ask it everything and be too scared to ask anything at all! In All The Answers by Kate Messner, Ava Anderson finds a pencil like this and must decide exactly what kinds of things she really wants know. Should she use it for test answers? to reveal who has a crush on her? to discover if her friends and family are all in good health? These are all questions that the pencil can respond to, but Ava, already a natural worrier, gets even more anxious now that she has access to all the answers. Sometimes knowing the outcome is not always a good thing.
This book is very sweet. Ava is a responsible girl who doesn't want to abuse the pencil for silly questions and this makes her a charming heroine. She must learn that pushing through her fears and living through uncertainty offers a more meaningful life than one with automatic answers. This story was easy to read and the mystery of the pencil's origin was very surprising. I think students ages 9-12 will enjoy this book very much.
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