AMY THE ASTRONAUT AND THE SECRET SOLDIERS

A 13-year-old aspiring space pilot joins a rescue mission to help a storm-damaged planet in this YA novel.

In her first adventure, 12-year-old Amy Sutter stole the Union spaceship Liberty Bell and rescued her father from the Crownaxians, an alien race whose leader wants to annihilate humanity. That was last year; now, back on her home planet, Paldor, Amy’s bold, fearless spirit keeps getting her into big trouble. Nevertheless, she and her friend Ethan are tapped to join a mission to help the planet Janar, where a huge storm wreaked destruction. On arriving, though, the team meets disaster. Terrorists kidnap Union soldiers, and Dr. Stanley Greenland, a scientist with a grudge against the Union, is building a robot army. Amy and her friends face enormous dangers that not everyone will survive as they investigate Greenland’s lab and work to free the hostages. Continuing the story in Amy the Astronaut and the Flight for Freedom (2013), Donahue draws a vivid picture of his irrepressible hero, who rises to every challenge—whether a space battle or a laser-pistol firefight. The plot offers exciting scenes of danger, battle, and hairbreadth escapes, with a chilling villain in Drelk, the Crownaxian leader, who admires Earth “visionaries....like Stalin, Hitler, Gaddafi, and Trump.” That said, the writing can be ungraceful, as in stilted, contraction-free conversations: “They are over there....They are sleeping now.” Some details are unnecessary and clunky, as in “she cleaned up the spilled water with a towel. She tossed the towel into a chute that led to a laundry bin.” And the 13-year-olds display implausibly intense romantic feelings, with Amy breaking into a sweat over an attractive alien boy and Ethan tightening his fists with rage over his “rival.”

An astronaut tale with a recklessly brave, appealing hero but sometimes-faltering prose.