FICTION

Arrival

by Tracy WOLFF
9781624022005. ea vol: illus. by Pat Kinsella. 48p. (Mars Bound). ebook available. Spellbound/Magic Wagon. 2016. Tr $19.95.
COPY ISBN
Gr 3–7—Teens Gabriel, Misty, and Braden are aboard a ship headed to Mars when things begin to go horribly wrong. Because of overcrowding, Earth's residents have been forced to join a colony on Mars. When the ship malfunctions and the adults on board die, the three teens become responsible for landing the ship safely. Each book outlines a problem that needs to be solved before they successfully land on the far-away planet, including a fellow teen who sabotages the mission and an explosion they need to create to put the ship back on course. Because of the short length, each book feels more like chapters of a larger book and thus won't work as a stand-alone. With big, readable text and bold use of font on each page, the titles are highly readable, with visually pleasing retro futuristic illustrations.
VERDICT The series is written at a second grade reading level and will be of interest to fans of science fiction and action.
Three teens headed to Mars must contend with a disaster aboard their colony ship in order to survive the trip. Each of these first four volumes is extremely short, catering to hi-lo readers, but here it's at the expense of story line and character development. Plentiful illustrations depict the futuristic space setting, and the font varies to aid in decoding.
Reviewed by Staff , Mar 01, 2017

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