April 2010 Cover to Cover Discussion title.

Have you ever wondered what it might be like to live on a space station? Jeff thought it was going to be awesome, full of excitement and special activities, like the space walk he and his Dad are supposed to be training for while Mom works on her super important solar data tracking. The truth: thanks to Mom’s assistant Doctor Krosta getting sick at exactly the wrong time, everyone, even Dad, is way too busy doing important science stuff to do anything else, especially anything that involves Jeff. Instead, Jeff is stuck with an annoying baby-sitting robot named Nanny. Jeff is bored out of his mind – until the e-mail from Earth arrives. “Hi! I am looking for a pen pal who lives in an unusual place. Your address seems unusual. Do you live in an unusual place? Are you looking for a pen pal? Write back. P.S. Do you like peanut butter???” Soon Jeff and his new pen pal are exchanging e-mails non-stop, but little does Jeff know that his pen pal isn’t on Earth. His pen-pal is right there with him on the space station. Rat turned the wrong way when she escaped from her laboratory on Earth and now she’s stuck on the space station and starving. Jeff is her only hope to survive, but Rat isn’t about to trust a human ever again so she’ll have to trick Jeff into helping her. Good thing Rat has some special skills like knowing how to type…

I really enjoyed this, but it was a bit of stretch for my 3rd and 4th graders to catch the nuances of emotion from the characters. They were mixed in their reviews - some found it totally boring, others thought it was pretty good and couldn't wait to read the sequel. I'd recommend it for 3rd through 6th graders who are looking for science fiction, but not as a first foray into the genre. ( )

This science fiction book is about a rat that has lab rat that has escaped into a space station. The rodent named Rat has been trained by scientist to be a super spy rat. He can communicate by typing and using sign language. The rat figures out to e-mail a lonely boy named Jeff. Rat hopes he can convince Jeff to help him find food. Things go wrong when Rat accidently chews a cord that causes the power to go out in the space station. Jeff starts helping the crew look for Rat not realizing they are trying to kill his new friend. When Jeff realizes he has to make a choice, will he help his friend or help harm him for what he has done to the space station?
I think this a great fast paced story of friendship and adventure. It would be neat if some animals even as small as a rat could communicate with us.
I would use this story with third through fifth graders. I would discuss different elements of a sci-fi story. Then I would have them read the story and ask them to list the sci-fi elements. After they are finished, I would have students do a group project writing a short story about an animal they would like to communicate with them. ( )