ZZinema! Fly Guy and the Alienzz by Tedd Arnold

A boy named Buzz had a pet fly. Buzz liked the fly because he could say his name perfectly... BUZZ!

One day Buzz said, "Hey, Fly Guy, I'm making a movie, It will be about aliens! Aliens are guys that come from space."

"BIRDZZZ?" asked Fly Guy.

Buzz draws some alien characters for Fly Guy to see and glues them to sticks. He also draws himself and Fly Guy as stick puppets and provides a backdrop, a cool Secret Hero Fort for his two space adventurers. He turns a flashlight into an alien spaceship with a killer ray gun and makes a solid gold space ship for the heroes.

Buzz sets up his phone as the movie camera.

"QUIET ON THE SET. ACTION!"

Fly Guy and Buzz-Boy cruise through space until they are attacked by space alienzz with the deadly light ray guns on their space ship. Their ship crashes into their fort, but Fly Guy manages to escape. He is joined by Fly Girl and together they zoom into space to save Buzz-Boy from space pirates and from Dragon Dude, who counter-attack with galactic fly swatters. The pirates capture the solid gold spaceship with Buzz-Boy still a prisoner inside and blast off into Deep Space.

Oh, no! Is Buzz-Boy a prisoner, lost in space?

"OOPS!" says Buzz. "we must make a movie sequel and rescue Buzz-Boy!"

"YEZZ!" says Fly Guy.

To Be Continued!

It's now an outer space series, in Tedd Arnold's latest in his own long-running and best-selling beginning readers stories, Fly Guy and the Alienzz (Fly Guy 18) (Scholastic/Cartwheel Books, 2018). Learning to read can be difficult, but veteran author-illustrator Tedd Arnold is able to rescue youngsters from the reading jitters with his hilarious drawings and far-out funny stories of a boy and his compound-eyed best buddy.“Fans of the series won't be disappointed in this easy-to-read intergalactic adventure” is the buzz from School Library Journal.

For more out-of-sight easy and silly stories by this author, lift off story time with Tedd Arnold's Parts (Picture Puffin Books), More Parts (Picture Puffin Books) and Even More Parts for some gloriously giggle-fest, out-of-body anatomy lessons.

Alien Abduction! The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away by Ronald L. Smith

"I think something happened," said Max. "We were camping. I was getting some firewood. I saw a light and like, an owl looking at me. And then I passed out. When I woke up, there was this little hole in my stomach. I think they put an implant inside of me!"

I thought Tony would burst out laughing, but he didn't. "I believe you, hombre," he finally said. "You have to tell somebody. What about your parents? I mean, they have to help you, Dude."

"I did. They thought I was crazy and took me to a doctor. They're making me take pills."

Tony bolted up. "Man, we gotta get you off of those!"

Mom thinks he needs medicine, his dad thinks he needs toughening up, his psychiatrist thinks he's delusional, and only Tony and his brother's girlfriend Miranda seem to believe what Max saw in the woods and the owls he keeps seeing in his window. Max believes he's been the victim of an alien abduction. And when Miranda takes him to a meeting of alien believers, what he hears convinces Max that what he feels is happening--the Grays, the extraterrestrials, is real. And they will return--when they are ready to use him.

If climate collapse weren't scary enough already, beware. Aliens are back, and we're not talking ET, either.

Not for the faint of heart, Ronald L. Smith's The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019) is for those readers who like to get goosebumps. Max is a wholly believable kid, one who hates gym class, never manages to please his military dad, but loves to read, one who would never seek out a ghost or an alien. But there it is--an owl, a loss of consciousness, something implanted just above his belly button and big-eyed birds watching him everywhere. Is he a just a disturbed child or can he see what the others cannot see is happening around them?

This is not your father's Boy-Meets-Bug-Eyed-Monsters story. Middle readers who like to get their pants scared off now and then will welcome this venture into the sci-fi tradition by veteran thriller writer Smith, who builds his tale of a seemingly normal summer vacation that builds to quite a climax, managing to blend British faery legend into a a tale of aliens with their own plan for saving the world.

Roland Smith's latest is ready to pair and scare thriller lovers with Smith's award-winning and bewitching Hoodoo (see my review here).

Into the Light! The Jamie Drake Equation by Christopher Edge

I hear a beep from my cell phone. I see the low battery icon. Mom will start to worry if she can't get hold of me. I look around and my eyes fall on Professor Forster's laptop. A USB cable dangles emptily.

With a quick glance over my shoulder, I plug the cable into my phone. But as the USB connects with the familiar three-note sound, I see a pop-up appear on the phone's screen:

DATALINK CONNECTED
INCOMING TRANSMISSION FROM
HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE
DOWNLOADING TO DEVICE.

Oh, no. Panicking, I make a grab for my phone, yanking the USB cable out.

Jamie Drake lives on Planet Earth, the only one in our solar system in the "Goldilocks Zone," habitable for humans. His dad is an astronaut at the International Space Station, about to launch laser-powered nano-drones toward the star Tau Ceti to probe for intelligent extra-terrestrial life on a planet in its orbit, and Jamie's whole school is avidly awaiting watching his famous father in dramatic style do it all on television.

Jamie's got it made for popularity in sixth grade. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, first, Jamie can't do his math homework, a whole page of pre-algebra equations. And then his mom tells him that she and his father are planning to divorce--just as soon as he returns to Earth. It's all too much. His father is a celebrity, in orbit on the International Space Station. But Jamie can't help resenting his dad for being where he is and who he is, and for not being what Jamie needs at that time. He's too unhappy to concentrate on math. His life is a mess. But when he runs out of his house, holding back tears, something happens....

Jamie grabs his battered cell phone and heads out for walk, ending at a supposedly closed public observatory. But the door is open, and Jamie's curiosity is aroused. He meets up with a private SETI researcher inside who is quietly using the telescope for her own search for extra-terrestrials. She explains that she's waiting for a download from the Hubble telescope, and while she's taking care of some "technical difficulties," Jamie decides to charge his phone, plugging it into a USB port on her computer. What happens next is something that, despite his father's work, Jamie could never have imagined.

I hear a buzzing sound. It's my cell phone. I look at the screen. Then I see it. At the corner of the screen is a new icon. It looks like a golden spiral and it seems to spin in time with the phone's vibration. I try to drag it out of the way, but it won't move at all.

There's a strange tingle in my finger. A number appears. 0

Then another number appears, followed by another and another.

0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144 233 377....

Yes, it's a Fibonacci sequence from an alien intelligence probing to see if it is in touch with an intelligent lifeform on Earth. Not only is Jamie enabled to do his math homework, but the screen reveals that the alien he calls "Buzz" is a member of the Hi've, beings who have had to leave their own plane of existence and become pure energy by "swarming into the light."

And when a sudden massive solar flare strands his own father hopelessly in space, Jamie has no hope beyond following Buzz's instructions to save his father.

"YOU MUST STEP INTO THE LIGHT. LIGHT IS ETERNAL.

It's a crackerjack of a premise, in Christopher Edge's The Jamie Drake Equation (Delacorte Press, 2018 Am. Ed.). Despite its au currant theory and technical devices, this middle reader science fiction book has much in common with the plot and theme of Madeleine L'Engle's classic A Wrinkle in Time (Time Quintet), as Jamie must call on his own courage and inner light, and with the guidance of his own ET, travel through time and space to save his father. Like Meg Murray, Jamie Drake is a real kid with real concerns who follows his own heart into a plane of existence he never dreamed of, all the while grounded in his love of his earthly family and life. Author Edge skillfully draws young readers into the storyline, seamlessly melding both science and spirit. "With solid science and believable family conflicts, this will be very satisfying to readers whose wishful thinking can suspend disbelief," Kirkus Reviews reports.

See You Later, Space Invader! Your Alien Returns by Tammi Sauer

WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT, SOMETHING SPECIAL WILL GET YOUR ATTENTION.

YOUR ALIEN WILL BE BACK.

HE'LL INVITE YOU FOR A PLAYDATE.

Not everyone has a friend from outer space, but you have welcomed your extraterrestrial friend before and even taken him to school for the day. Somehow he managed to blend right in, even though your teacher did keep trying to adjust her glasses.

And now.... HE'S BACK! He motions you toward his spaceship, sitting on the lawn with its motor running. Should you go along?

Well, who wouldn't? Mom is distracted when you ask for permission, so you promise to be back for dinner. And then, with a GLEEP, your alien takes the controls and you rise into outer space.

YOU'LL HAVE THE RIDE OF YOUR LIFE!

After a quick introduction to your alien's family,  he'll offer you a snack.  Politely, you'll try it all... except for a few things....

YOU'LL POLITELY DECLINE ANYTHING THAT STARES BACK AT YOU.

Then it's time to take off for some alien fun. There's a stellar fort to build, and then your alien takes you around the neighborhood to meet his friends. They don't look too much like the gang at home.

SEEING ALL OF THEM WILL MAKE YOU FEEL... ALIENATED!

It's hard to feel at home when you are actually in another solar system. The aliens invite you to play their favorite game, but your skills aren't quite up to scoring. You don't know exactly what you did, but it seems that you ruined the whole game. But your alien seems to remember his day on your planet and gives your hand an empathetic squeeze.

YOU KNOW YOU HAVE THE BEST FRIEND IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE!

There's no place like home, as Dorothy observed from Oz, and in Tammi Sauer's sequel to her noted 2016 book, Your Alien, (see my 2016 review here), the homing instinct kicks in, and in a nanosecond his very own E.T. whizzes him home just in time for dinner. It's not goodbye, but see you later, in Sauer's follow-up science fictional, trans-spacial friendship tale, Your Alien Returns. (Atheneum Press, 2016). Artist Gora Fujita again provides the detailed illustrations of interspace fun and games, while Sauer's text, with its light theme of accepting and appreciating differences leaves a warm and fuzzy message that continues the mood of the first book. Pair these two for an interstellar treatise on the value of friendship wherever you find it. Kirkus Reviews says that this sweet story allows "readers to tag along with the pals into the next phase of the ultimate in long-distance friendships."