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HEART OF EARTH

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This YA sci-fi debut sees an alien criminal exiled to Earth with dire—and hilarious—consequences.
Ixdahan Daherek (also spelled Daharek), an eight-tentacled Snaldrialooran, has illegally downloaded information from the Ministry of Defense and sold it to the Vrukaari, a rival species. He only did so because his father cut his allowance in half. As punishment, Ixdahan is placed in a transmog chamber, turned into the 17-year-old human Derek Dixon, and sent to live on Earth. There, robot parents will help him pass for a normal teenager. Derek’s arrival by spaceship, however, is witnessed by Lena Gabrilowicz. She’s on her dad’s boat in Felicity Bay when she loses consciousness, only to wake with empty beer cans in hand and a note nearby saying, “No one will believe you.” But she eventually meets the socially inept Derek and, at Skudderton High School, bonds with him despite his stilted speech and crush on her best friend, Callie Ann. Things don’t get truly weird until Lena is hospitalized for a fungal infection on her hands and extra “mutant” mailboxes begin appearing all over Skudderton and the world. Once Derek’s robot parents start malfunctioning, he suspects that the belligerent Vrukaari plan to invade—and it’s all his fault. Author Laporta sets up his snarky epic quickly, establishing Earth as a backwater “Level 2 civilization,” full of “ape-descended, gas-breathing bipeds.” Derek’s robot parents are equally amusing, often speaking with exaggerated cheer: “Finally made it up, Sleepy Head?” But the real joy of this narrative is watching Derek grow to care for the supposedly inferior earthlings, especially Lena, who’s a “sentient creature like himself, curious about the texture of the universe and the meaning of life.” And, holding it all together is Laporta’s spot-on portrayal of life as a teen; while Lena looks forward to a career in either oceanography or metal sculpting, high school is a “snarling beast that devoured her time, slurped down her energy and roared for more.” A bittersweet ending rounds off this fabulous read.

An irresistible blend of wonky science and heartfelt storytelling.

Pub Date: June 11, 2013

ISBN: 9780692239841

Page Count: 191

Publisher: Chickadee Prince Books

Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2014

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THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL

From the School for Good and Evil series , Vol. 1

Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.

Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.

Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and  her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).

Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)

Pub Date: May 14, 2013

ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2

Page Count: 496

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013

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A ROVER'S STORY

The intelligences here may be (mostly) artificial, but the feelings are genuine and deep.

A Mars rover discovers that it has a heart to go with its two brains.

Warga follows her cybernetic narrator from first awareness to final resting place—and stony indeed will be any readers who remain unmoved by the journey. Though unable to ask questions of the hazmats (named for their suits) assembling it in a NASA lab, the rover, dubbed Resilience by an Ohio sixth grader, gets its first inklings of human feelings from two workers who talk to it, play it music, and write its pleasingly bug-free code. Other machines (even chatty cellphones) reject the notion that there’s any real value to emotions. But the longer those conversations go, the more human many start sounding, particularly after Res lands in Mars’ Jezero Crater and, with help from Fly, a comically excitable drone, and bossy satellite Guardian, sets off on twin missions to look for evidence of life and see if an older, silenced rover can be brought back online. Along with giving her characters, human and otherwise, distinct voices and engaging personalities, the author quietly builds solid relationships (it’s hardly a surprise when, after Fly is downed in a dust storm, Res trundles heroically to the rescue in defiance of orders) on the way to rest and joyful reunions years later. A subplot involving brown-skinned, Arabic-speaking NASA coder Rania unfolds through her daughter Sophia’s letters to Res.

The intelligences here may be (mostly) artificial, but the feelings are genuine and deep. (afterword, resources) (Science fiction. 9-13)

Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022

ISBN: 978-0-06-311392-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022

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