Sputnik's Guide to Life on Earth

When narrator Prez Mellows, who is electively mute and living in temporary care until Granddad can "get himself sorted out," opens the front door of his foster family's house, there stands a stranger wearing goggles, a too-big sweater, a leather helmet, and a kilt, with a massive pair of scissors stuffed in his belt like a sword. His name: Sputnik. To Prez, he looks like a boy; to everyone else, like a dog. But Prez soon learns that Sputnik is an alien who can read minds and play with the laws of physics. Sputnik is on a mission: he must find "ten things worth seeing or doing" in order to save Earth from destruction (the universe's Planetary Clearance department is in the midst of "pan-galactic decluttering"--getting rid of useless old planets and stars to make room for new celestial bodies). What follows is a madcap series of cinematic action sequences, and soon Sputnik has nine not-very-interesting things worth saving on his list: Earth's atmosphere, chickens and eggs, the TV remote, etc. But it's with the tenth thing, revealed at the end, that the novel finds its philosophical bearings. Prez and Sputnik, two boys alone in the universe, bond as Prez searches for his beloved granddad (who, it turns out, is in a nursing home with Alzheimer's) and Sputnik strives to save the world that contains them. What more could a novel offer--an earnest young protagonist, an alien (or a dog), adventure, and, perhaps, the meaning of life? dean Schneider