Star Hatchling: 9

I am truly sorry to see that this book has gone out of print. I have used Star Hatchling with advanced 5th grade readers for almost 10 years, and I now have to buy replacement copies from obscure, used sources. Star Hatchling turns the traditional science fiction story on its ear. Two children discover a creature that has apparently fallen from the stars. It is horribly alien and ugly. Its habits are strange and its attempts to communicate, incomprehensible. The children keep the creature hidden while they try to figure out what it is, where it came from, and what it wants. The twist is this: the children are amphibious beings native to a strange planet, and the hideous creature they have discovered is a human girl. Told in multiple first person, Star Hatchling is a wonderful science fiction story designed to encourage readers to make inferences and use context clues to interpret new vocabulary. Too often, advanced readers know so much vocabulary on their own that they don't have strategies to deal with strange, new words. In Star Hatchling, they will be forced to rediscover the skill of learning new words, as they interpret the very strange vocabulary of the protagonists. I love this book, and I love teaching it in my class. I'm off right now to grab a few more used copies for my class before they disappear. I hope the author seeks to republish this book. It deserves to be rediscovered.

All I have to say is this book is better than many adult science fiction stories I have read. This author has realistic names for alien life forms. Nothing like "Gork" or "Snirk", but names that sound like they could've been here on Earth. Also, the point of view technique she uses is similar to that in "Morning Girl", but much more contrasting, and beautiful. This is a book for all ages...NO MATTER who it was written for!