THE FIELD TRIP

A high school choir field trip comes to a halt when alien invaders generate an electromagnetic pulse, grounding planes, turning off phones, and shutting down power plants.

Kayla has hated fellow soprano Steph since third grade. Now high school juniors, the two are even more strident in their rivalry. Their bickering and constant one-upmanship continue as resources dwindle and a long hike looks inevitable. An alien flyover and a carjacking leave the group stranded and force Kayla and Steph to bury the hatchet before their conflict buries them all. In The Fallout, by Glasko Klein, a mall seems like the perfect place to lie low and stock up on supplies following an alien attack, but 16-year-old Nina never imagined hiding out with the school weirdo, her ex-boyfriend, and a superjock. When their saviors start acting more like prison guards, Sanjay and his friends decide to break out of their school in Lockdown, by Raelyn Drake (Realm of Mystics, 2017, etc.). In Getting Home by Stephanie Perry Moore (Sit on Top, 2015, etc.), Bailey and her younger brother, Blake, are caught on a bus between Atlanta and Montgomery when an EMP attack shuts everything down. While an alien attack is the common thread, these stories are less about extraterrestrial problems and more about issues common to many teenagers. Characters struggle with pride, anger, lost love, rivalries, and first crushes. While the majority of characters are assumed white, names indicate ethnic diversity in Lockdown, and the characters are implied African-American in Getting Home.

Aliens may be attacking, but teen angst still holds sway in this reluctant reader series.