ASTROBIA

Two eighth graders use supernatural powers to investigate why teens are disappearing through a school library window, among other mysteries, in this third middle-grade series installment.

Paavola, whose most recent novel is Call Me Firefly (2019), spins another paranormal adventure featuring Sonny Etherly, an African American youth who’s being raised by his grandmother, and his friend Breanne Thurman, who’s white. Both kids are fascinated by science, including esoteric ideas involving string theory and the concept of alternative worlds. Sonny and Breanne also have the ability to read each other’s minds and communicate with ghosts. A mystery is afoot when Sonny spies the number “202” written on a transom window in the school library. The kids soon encounter the ghost of Lorene Turner, a former school librarian, who last saw her brilliant teenage grandson, Bennett, when he disappeared through that very window 16 years before. Then Sonny and Breanne discover that he’s not the only person to have vanished in the same manner. In clear prose and short chapters with lots of cliffhangers, Paavola deftly integrates the supernatural (including the ghost of a Boston bulldog named Con) with more mundane mystery elements. Sonny and Breanne emerge as an entertaining team whose powers don’t distract from their real-life concerns. Breanne, for instance, has an especially close relationship with her grandfather, a retired police officer who’s still trying to crack a cold case involving the murder of a Vietnamese bank manager. Sonny, meanwhile, relies on his grandmother to help him deal with the death of his mom, who served in the U.S. Air Force in Afghanistan, and his feelings about his father, a U.S. Marine who’s still stationed there. At one crucial moment, Sonny even hears his grandmother’s advice in his head, urging him to be like his father: “Don’t let fear stop you. Figure a way out.”

A suspenseful, page-turning new episode in a lively paranormal mystery series.