Thirteen-year-old Houston Williams is smart. Very smart. So no one is surprised when he earns a scholarship to attend a prestigious NASA space camp. At the training facility he immediately bonds with his new team, including a girl named Teal. He also clashes with a girl on a rival team named Ashley, who matches or beats him in every exercise. The three of them impress the directors so much they are invited to join a top-secret research project that studies how space travel affects people of different ages. But only two of them will actually be going into space. Houston will do whatever it takes to make sure he's picked.
Eric Walters’s newest series opens with a contest disguised as a space camp. The premise—young teens training for and unknowingly competing for an opportunity to become an astronaut—is obviously appealing, especially to readers who like high-stakes adventure and stories about space. Through Houston’s eyes we get to see all the different elements of astronaut training, from puzzle building underwater to zero-gravity simulations in airplanes. These aspects of training are brought realistically and believably to life by Walters, who actually attended such a space camp as part of his research for this book. The concepts of commitment and teamwork carry throughout the novel.
From the author of Off Trail comes a hilarious mystery about what happens when a chilling trip leads to a lost fortune.
Nate and Lily knew their mother was different. All it took was a hunch or a bad feeling and the family would be uprooted and moving to a different apartment or even a different town. But when the two are torn out of their life in the ritzy North Bay for the summer and dropped in "the Mississippi of California" on the Sacramento River Delta, Nate Caldwell and his sister Lily see it as one more move in a series of lurching disruptions driven by their mother's suspicion that something or someone is after them.
When they settle into life around their uncle's House of Illusion roadside attraction, Nate meets Mia—who makes all the girls he knew in the North Bay seem shallow and dull—and begins to connect with local teens who couldn't be more different than the privileged classmates he left behind.
It's not until they learn that the story behind the attraction is more than just a tale for the tourists, that Nate begins to figure out what drove his mother's suspicious nature.
Here’s a novel with all the elements of a thriller, from hulking, slow-witted antagonists who believe in conspiracy theories, to an abduction, car chases and a teen dragnet op. There’s also a would-be psychic, a legend of lost treasure and a carnival-style house of mirrors-plus.
Quinn’s illusions are as good as those in any Vegas act—but can he win a spot at a prestigious magic camp despite an upstaging partner, a cute rival and a con-artist mentor?
Fifteen-year-old Quinn Purcell wants only one thing: to win a coveted spot at the Masters of Magic Fantasy Camp. But the competition is stiff, including Dani Darling, an incredibly talented, and incredibly attractive, rival magician who prestidigitates her way into Quinn’s heart—unless that’s just another of her tricks. To make matters worse, Quinn and his best friend, Perry, have always performed their magic as a team, but the judges want solo acts, and a two-man audition might disqualify them. When Quinn meets his idol, the Dazzling Lazlo, at a diner, it seems like a sign. If he can convince Lazlo to spill the secrets to his greatest trick, then the spot at the camp is all but Quinn’s. But is the washed-up magician just using Quinn to run a few scams? When the chips are down, what will Quinn risk—his best friend, his new crush, or his career as a magician? Hilarious and fast-paced, Don Calame’s latest novel is full of complicated magic tricks and equally complicated friendships.
I love the humorous lines in this book, and the main characters: three budding magicians vying against one another to win an audition. (You learn tons about magic tricks.)
The protagonist is Quinn, who has always performed magic shows alongside his best friend Perry. Now it appears the upcoming audition is going to require them to perform separately. Is that good or bad, because not so secretly, Quinn is insanely jealous of his friend, given that Perry is handsome, kind, debonair, etc. And has his pick of girls.
After the first settler on Titan trips her distress signal, neither remaining country on Earth can afford to scramble a rescue of its own, and so two sworn enemies are installed in the same spaceship.
Ambrose wakes up on the Coordinated Endeavor, with no memory of a launch. There’s more that doesn’t add up: Evidence indicates strangers have been on board, the ship’s operating system is voiced by his mother, and his handsome, brooding shipmate has barricaded himself away. But nothing will stop Ambrose from making his mission succeed -- not when he’s rescuing his own sister.
In order to survive the ship’s secrets, Ambrose and Kodiak will need to work together and learn to trust one another… especially once they discover what they are truly up against. Love might be the only way to survive.