Review: A Rover's Story

By Jasmine Warga

New York : Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2022. Fiction. 294 pgs.

Resilience is a rover whose mission is to go to Mars to collect samples and retrieve another rover. As he is preparing for his mission, he begins to learn and development human-like emotions. When he lands on Mars, he is faced with all kinds of obstacles that he must overcome as he tries to complete his objectives and return to earth.

This story switches between being told from the perspective from Resilience, or Res, and letters that are written by Sophie, the daughter of the NASA engineer who created Res. This chapter book is filled with fun scientific informational that is intertwined with a heartwarming story. The characters are very lovable and there is some fun humor mixed in with the story of space exploration. A Rover's Story is perfect for science fiction fans that love books such as The Wild Robot or The Last Human.

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Review: The Factory

The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages. Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...

Review: Blood in the Water

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National Geographic Book of Animal Poetry

National Geographic Book of Animal Poetry Edited by J. Patrick Lewis National Geographic, 2012, 183 p. Poetry In this beautiful poetry collection, the National Children's Poet Laureate, J. Patrick Lewis, has teamed up with the amazing photographers at National Geographic. The result is 200 poems about animals, all illustrated with stunning nature photography. The poems are well chosen and include rhyming, free verse, and shape poetry. Some of the poems are funny, many are contemplative and all are nicely typeset on top of the full color photographs. One of my favorites is a shape poem about flamingos, with a photograph of a flock of flamingos which seem to be standing the the shape of a flamingo (how did they do that?). Lewis ends the collection with a brief but interesting section about writing animal poetry. This selection is sure to turn any animal lover into a poetry lover.

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