May 20, 2025 by MIT Kids Press
Copy provided by Young Adult Books Central
Like the Young Adult collection by this group, Tasting Light: Ten Science Fiction Stories to Rewire Your Perceptions, Starstuff showcases middle grade authors who turn their hands to envisioning what science will look like in the future. The authors puts their own personal twists on this theme, while offering readers glimpses of the future that are timely and sometimes worrisome. Let's take a brief look at what is included.
Jenn Reese, whose middle grade novels Every Bird a Prince and Puzzleheart lean towards magic, hands us a "To-do List for the Apocalypse". River doesn't understand why her mother needs to move her to California after divorcing her father since there is an asteroid on its way to Earth. Her mother, who got a job teaching psychology, is also a citizen scientist, and when she gets an alert while they are driving to their new home, the two stop in Colorado to set up a station to record the asteroid as it passes close to the planet. Using the backyard of Jamila and her father Rahesh (who is also divorced from his husband), River finds out the real truth about the asteroid and makes peace with her new life.
In "Calm Down, People", Carlos Hernandez (Sal and Gabi Break the Universe) introduces us to Orquidea Bandana, who is a on a space mission to show consumers that space travel is safe even for people who might be deathly allergic to bees or possibly in the early stages of multiple sclerosis, like she is. Bandana saves the day with her knowledge of EpiPens and inhalers when the captain is stung by one of the blue orchard bees on board, and helps Spacerino Exploration Travel show that space tourism isn't dangerous.
Zinn and Charlie break into the Athanatos research facility in "The Whistleblowers" after Zinn's grandfather needs the EternaLife medicine that Charlie's mother has developed but has since found out can cause cancer. Kekla Magoon, whose Robyn Hoodlum series was set in a dystopia future, writes a thrilling tale about medical ethics gone wrong and kids doing what they can to save the ones they love.
With people living on space stations, there has to be a way to get supplies to them. In Alexander's "Aesop's Elevator", which is written in the second person, our narrator loves living in the tiny apartment that is part of the space elevator that his mother designed, although his sister Addy would love to return to Earth permanently. When rocket entrepreneur John Jay Jordan threatens this existence by making a bet that his rockets can provide supplies more quickly, the narrator has to step in to discover who has sabotaged the elevator. Alexander, the editor of this volume who has written a lot of books with which I am not familiar, will be known to middle grade readers for his The Kids in Mrs. Z's Class: The Legend of Memo Castillo.
Maddi Gonzalez, who has written several of the Goosebumps graphic novels, contributes the only graphic novel style story with "Zabrina Meets the Retro Club", which finds Zabrina meeting members of a group she has only known online at the M.A.L.L.: the Multimedia Augmented Liminal Location. Her friends Ada, Brandi, Carol and Dina are glad to finally see each other in real life, although Dina is joining the group as a robot, since she is sick at home. Since Zabrina wears thick glasses, the two can't enjoy the virtual reality headsets, but everyone is glad to be able to hang out together.
Kallen and his friend Ryla are on the spaceship Whistle Pig in "The Most Epic Nap in the Universe" and are determined that they Kallen will opt out of his hibernation cycle so the two can hang out together and Ryla won't get older that Kallen is. Their plans are thwarted by Kallen's mother, who doesn't want to miss out on time with her son, but the two manage to wake Kallen up and get into trouble, some of it involving the marmots that help the hibernation process. Capetta has done some young adult books, along with the elementary fantasy novel, Hocus and Pocus and the Spell for Home.
Eliot Schrefer, who wrote Young Adult thrillers before turning his hand to books like Endangered, offers
an interesting look at "A Proposal to the Animal Congress". In a text message format, narrated by an AI hawk and rabbit, the animals try to find the best way to minimize suffering for all animals.
Artificial Intelligence is used again in Robertson's "Of What We Never Were" when we see Stacy, who is clearly struggling at school, constantly texting her best friend Adam, who is not with her all day for reasons that become clear later in the story.
Fran Wilde (Gemworld, Bone Universe, The Canarvier Files) takes us on a wild ride in Red, Right, Returning as fifth grader Ollie Vere struggles with taking her prepilot test along with her twin sister Ella and best friend Luiz. When she presses the "optimize" button too many times, complications ensue, her anxiety rises, and the test seems even more difficult.
Finally, Lucy's class gets to submit ideas for a Space Treaty Organization contest in 2068, and while her teacher Mr. Gupta initially has reservations about whether a time capsule is a good use of the opportunity to send an object into space, Lucy's project is chosen, and she and her teammates must work to figure out what they can include in such a small space. Years after including information on DNA cartridges, Lucy comes across her own time capsule on a mission and adds additional items. 850 million years later, the capsule is found again, and this afterthought inclusion allows a future society to bring Lucy's clone to life in "The Traveler" by Wade Roush.
While some of these stories were more effective than others, they all included a respectable amount of scientific information, although this sometimes overshadowed the narrative flow. It's hard to find science fiction that doesn't devolve into dystopia, so these stories will be a big hit with readers who enjoy futuristic adventures that try to predict how science and technology will change and impact our existence. It's hard to find science fiction short story collection for middle grade readers, but if they enjoyed novels like Mbalia's Last Gate of the Emperor, Warga's A Rover's Story, or Rodkey's We're Not From Here, Starstuff will hit the spot.
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