scifi for kids

Molly of Mars and the Alien Nebula Book Review by Roan Reedling author of the Rocket McGee series.

Kid Heroes to the Rescue with a Well-Laid Plan!

I loved the action sequences in the first book, but this second book starts with an action sequence even more brilliantly described than those in the first – prettier, more evocative, and well-woven with backstory and setup – a fast, compact rush of images that quickly sweeps you off your feet and headlong into the story. Then, an unrelenting string of questions, answers, and mysteries within mystery keep the story moving and the reader involved.

Maybe it’s just because Molly befriended me in Book 1, but this story feels more intimately told, as if Molly’s sharing her story by letting you read her diary. I liked that.

The story is sprinkled throughout with similes so whimsically mundane and charmingly evocative they made me chuckle, marvel, and totally get it, all at once, like the sensation of clamping your magnetic boots onto a spacecraft’s hull for a dicey spacewalk compared to negotiating the tackiness of a movie theater’s aisles after the show.

I’d read it again, but there’s so much more Molly to go. More books, I mean. And that’s good, ’cause the only disappointment I experienced was that this story felt shorter than the last, and I got to spend less time in Molly’s world this time than I would have liked.

But it’s still well worth the visit. So, sit back, curl up, pull the popcorn close, and let your escape pod drift into this book.

Molly of Mars and The Alien Syndicate Book Review by Roan Reedling author of the Rocket McGee series

Molly of Mars 1 Book Review by Roan Reedling author of the Rocket McGee series.

Molly’s a brave, young, human inhabitant of Mars, full of heart and fire, who cares deeply for her friends and her planet, and takes full and personal responsibility for defending them. My kind of kid character. My kind of hero of any age.

The book’s an easy read and an excellent study in show-don’t-tell storytelling. The author does a very nice job of helping us share – feel – the anxieties, misunderstandings, hurts, hopes, and vindications experienced by Molly and her friends through their deeds and reactions – and those of the people around them. We witness the kids’ growth, as they wrestle with their experiences, gain insight from them, and mature in their deeds and reactions. But they’re kind of mature to begin with, and the daily challenges of being a grown-up kid, unnoticed or dismissed in a grownups’ world, are portrayed in credible ways that feel real.

The author does a great job, too, of weaving the friends’ backstories and the history of humans on Mars into the story at just the right moments, without disrupting the story’s flow, while the kids unravel the mystery – even as it deepens – so there’s rarely a lull in the action as the kids charge headlong through a gauntlet of sleek, cinematic action sequences.

Sure, I had to yank myself out of the story a time or two and put the book aside, […]