Cosmic | Frank Cottrell Boyce

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Liam is tall. So tall that everyone thinks he's a grown up instead of a 12 year old boy. And being a fake grown up has it's perks, especially if you are also the fake father of a real girl who is selected to be sent to the moon on a top secret space mission. But Liam quickly discovers that the responsibilities of adulthood are far more heavy than he can imagine, even in the weightlessness of outer space.

This was my first read for this year's Cybils and it's progress was impeded by all sorts of my own adult responsibilities. Liam thrilled at the opportunity to go on rides without adult supervision and drive a Porsche without being asked for his license. But it isn't until he is directly responsible for the care and well-being of several children who fear their feet might never touch Earth's soil again that he realizes maybe it's time to start acting his age and not his size.

I totally understand. Just as Liam used his RPG skills in order to combat real life situations, I've been trying to use all of the things I've picked up in books and lectures to drill 21st century learning skills into the minds of 5th and 6th graders. And we both felt the gravity of what it means to be responsible for the care and intellectual development of a child in that age development. Liam takes on Florida, his celebrity obsessed classmate, as his imiginary daughter and quickly comes to realize that caring for another pre-teen is just as much of a rollercoaster as those offered in Infinity Park.

I'll be keeping this book on the bench, as far as early-on shortlist predictions go. I really enjoyed Liam's voice in this book - the way he found humor in certain situations, how he thought of his parents and the situations that he found himself in. I wonder whether it is completely accessible to students - there is a tangential storytelling path that I think younger readers will enjoy, but something about the language used along that route gave me some hard to articulate reservations.

Posted on Tuesday, Oct 19, 2010