Told in five parts and written from the perspective of a Mars’ Rover intermixed with letters from Sophie, A Rover’s Story by Jasmine Warga targets middle grade readers who are fascinated by space, earth science, and computer coding. Inspired by NASA’s real Mars’ Rover, Warga creates Resilience. Under the influence of Warga’s pen and through anthropomorphism, Resilience learns important lessons about what it might mean to be human. Res develops relationships with two NASA scientists, Rania and Xander who work in California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and with a community of machines, namely Journey, Fly, and Guardian. Built for observation, Resilience awakens to knowledge. Although notRead More →

Like all good dystopian fiction, Frost by M. P. Kozlowsky begins with a social question that has currency and relevance and then exaggerates the answer to warn society of what could happen if we don’t take the appropriate actions or proceed with caution.  Kozlowsky’s plot revolves around wishes for everlasting life–for human immortality–and Dr. Alex Simmelfore has found an answer: Create a robot and download human consciousness to a chip that can be planted into the robot.  These improved robot beings will have human instinct, human thought, and human complexity combined with a body that won’t age, wear down, or succumb to illness. As readers will suspect,Read More →