Satellite

Leo and his friends, twins Libra and Orion, were born and raised on Moon 2, a space station that orbits Earth. Now that Leo is almost sixteen, he and the twins are being flown "home" to Earth, where they look forward to new, "normal" experiences--hearing a live concert; planting a garden; going to high school. But as Leo settles into life on his grandfather's California ranch, he realizes he hasn't been told all that he should know about his role in space research. Nor has he been told that his body, formed in zero gravity, might not survive Earth's gravity long-term. Gradual revelations of plot and the suspense of astronautical near-misses make for steady momentum, and the future setting is cleverly reinforced in the prose style--the book uses text message-like abbreviations and lowercase letters at the beginnings of sentences ("on a screen in front of her i c Moon 2 come into view"). Throughout, the tone of Leo's account is reflective, the poetic musings of a boy who has absorbed a (perhaps improbable) abundance of contextual understanding during his education in space. Gay romance, racial identity (all three teens have brown skin), politics of space exploration, and notions of colonization and home all combine with Lake's overarching poetic theme of a teenager experiencing Earth and, indeed, life for the first time. deirdre f. baker