Eyes on the Sky
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
From acclaimed author J. Kasper Kramer comes a historical middle grade novel about a budding young scientist in 1947 Roswell, New Mexico, who fears her weather balloon experiment has been mistaken for a flying saucer!
Nothing ever happens in Roswell, New Mexico. Dorothy should know. She’s lived her whole life on a rural ranch nearby, surrounded by the difficult memories from her family’s struggles to make ends meet during the Great Depression years ago. At least her older brother Dwight is home safe from the war. Unfortunately he’s no better to talk to than her ancient pet sheep, Geraldine.
Thankfully Dorothy has her experiments, like launching rockets off the top of her windmill. But one stormy night, she sends a gigantic weather balloon into the stratosphere—and an incredible blast lights up the sky. Suddenly, all the newspapers feature a flying saucer crash in their headlines and the sleepy town of Roswell is alight with gossip and speculation. But what if the so-called extraterrestrial vessel is actually Dorothy’s weather balloon?
When FBI agents start asking questions, she begins to suspect that there’s something out there, something dangerous. Either the government is after her for causing a national scandal…or aliens are real!
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When their parents' deaths force 12-year-old Dorothy Duncan's older brother Dwight to leave the Army to care for her, impulsive, science-minded Dorothy worries that she's cost him an impressive military career. The bickering and resentful siblings live on a dusty, rundown ranch in New Mexico, where Dwight looks for crop-dusting jobs and Dorothy tests amateur fireworks and confides in their old sheep Geraldine. After an explosion lights up the sky following the disastrous launch of her weather balloon powered by homemade hydrogen, Dorothy fears that her experiment may have brought down an aircraft from the nearby Roswell Air Force base. Enlisting the help of tween Hugo to locate the potential wreckage, Dorothy attracts the attention of shadowy FBI agents and, upon discovering a mysterious object in a cave glowing with otherworldly flora, begins to wonder if the government is covering up something extraterrestrial. Though it's slow to start, this historical tale by Kramer (The List of Unspeakable Fears) soon takes off with the incorporation of science fiction elements, and the meticulous, expertly rendered 1947 desert setting enhances its thrilling conclusion. Main characters read as white. Ages 8–12.
