A varna if ever there was one, Klatu crashes the family spaceship on a strange planet (we call it “Earth”), sees his little sister, Ploo, captured by bumbling soldiers from a certain secret Nevada military base and, “disguised” in severely dorky human clothes, he careens off to the rescue in a stolen pizza delivery truck with his brother Lek. Pitched toward recent graduates of the Easy Reader section, this nonstop knee-slapper features chapter heads like “Close Encounters of the Worst Kind,” frantic action and cartoon scenes of child-sized aliens looking puzzled by inscrutable (to them) human food, dress, technology and general behavior. Ploo having sprung herself by making friends with the daughter of the base’s commander, Major Paine, the three young visitors are ultimately reunited, and last seen heading off for the next installment, Lost in Las Vegas (March 2006, ISBN: 0375833455, PLB: 037593345X). Not quite Zack Files quality, but a step up from Greenburg’s other current series, Secrets of Dripping Fang. (Science fiction. 8-10)
