Synopsis
One day while running on the trail near his house in upstate New York, Owen McGuire meets a girl with startling green eyes and bloody cuts all over her body who seems to be utterly alone. Her name is Campion, after the wildflower that is an alien species in the area—alien meaning “from someplace else”—and Campion claims to come from someplace else entirely, a planet called Home. She plans to signal her parents to come pick her up in their spaceship. Owen agrees to help, and as he does, he feels happier than he has in a long time: his mother died a year and a half ago, and now he and his workaholic father live together like two planets on separate orbits, in a new house far from his friends. What will he do when Campion asks him to come with her into outer space, away from his lonely life on Earth?
In this moving novel, two friendless kids search the night sky for something to believe in—but discover that they’ve found what they need right here on Earth.
Publishers Weekly
DeFelice’s compact, suspenseful novel features 12-year-old Owen McGuire during his first lonely summer in the Finger Lakes region of New York, where he and his father have just moved. He spends his days exploring the woods and deeply missing his mother, who died a year and a half earlier in a car accident, and with whom he shared a passionate belief in the possibilities of extraterrestrial life. So when he comes upon a strange girl named Cam with glittery green eyes, he is ready to believe her story of being an alien whose spaceship accidentally left without her. Swearing him to secrecy, Cam enlists his help in building a signal to direct her parents’ spaceship to her location, and tries to persuade him to leave with her. Well-drawn secondary characters create a threatening backdrop to the developing mystery, while Owen’s poignant relationship with his work-driven father elicits sympathy. The tension builds on several fronts to a gripping climax and satisfying conclusion. Owen’s likable voice, the plot’s quick pace and the science fiction overtones make this a winner. Ages 10–up. (Sept.)