COSMIC

Twelve-year-old Liam Digby is Completely Doomed. He’s lost in outer space, incommunicado, in a Chinese spacecraft called Infinite Possibility. To further complicate matters, he’s an imposter: a tall-for-his-age kid with premature facial hair pretending to be a dad so he could participate in the secret civilian space flight in the first place—a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory–style contest in which the winning children get to go on the ultimate thrill ride, an actual rocket. The good news is, the view is amazing: “When you’re in it, space looks like the biggest firework display ever—except it’s on pause…. Even if you’re Completely Doomed, you’ve got to be impressed.” On the heels of the Carnegie Medal–winning Millions (2004) and Framed (2006), Cottrell Boyce has created a riveting, affecting, sometimes snortingly funny “what-if” scenario that illuminates the realities of space travel as it thoughtfully examines the nature of adulthood. Liam’s musings on what it takes to be a good, responsible father are dryly comical but also charmingly earnest. A high-levity zero-gravity romp. (Science fiction. 10-14)