Star Hatchling - Softcover

Margaret Bechard says, "When I was growing up, my father and I didn't share a lot of interests or activities. I was the youngest of his six children, a quiet child who spent most of her time reading. He was in his fifties and spent most of his time working in an office I never saw. But on Sunday afternoons in the fall and winter, we had a ritual. He would build a fire in the fireplace and settle into his armchair. I would stretch out onto the floor. And we would watch football games. His favorite team was the Minnesota Vikings. "Now I watch football with my three sons. They stretch out on the floor and the couches. I get the seat closest to the fire. Their favorite team is the San Francisco 49ers. I still root for the Vikings." Margaret Bechard is the author of five novels. She lives in Tigard, Oregon with her family. copyright ? 2000 by Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved.

Grade 4-6-Shem and Cheko may have tails, gills, and crablike pincers, but they bicker just like any other brother and sister in this well-developed sci-fi story by the author of Really No Big Deal (Viking, 1994). When they come upon a strange, four-limbed creature in the forest, Cheko's joy at finding something to relieve her boredom overwhelmes Shem's caution; rather than take it to their elders, the two hide it in a cave and treat it as a pet. "It," in fact, is Hanna, a sullen human teen accidentally ejected from a passing starship-wishing, too late, that she'd paid more attention in her Survival and First Contact classes. Despite hilarious misunderstandings-Shem and Cheko think Hanna is male and never are enlightened-and constant arguing, the three manage to share adventures both mild and wild. Hanna ends up rescuing her "Indigie" friends as well as the human adult sent to rescue her, and, to Cheko's disgust, Shem develops an interest in an attractive female "Outsider" from a neighboring settlement. Bechard constructs a believable, complex setting for her characters, a world presided over by sentient trees and beset with problems that are not neatly solved at the end. Put this next to Annette Klause's Alien Secrets (Delacorte, 1993) as a satisfying reminder that juvenile science fiction needn't be simplistic.
John Peters, New York Public Library
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