Title: Andy McBean and the War of the Worlds
Author: Dale Kutzera
Date: 2014
Publisher Salmon Bay
Quote: "Been'Tok often had an insufficiently positive attitude."
In H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, Martians attacked Earth and killed lots of humans. The fictional story terrified people who heard it dramatized on radio.
In Dale Kutzera's kid-friendly novel, Martians start to attack Earth, but their goal is not to kill humans, humans don't react by instantly trying to kill them, and there's an opportunity for communication. Specifically, Andy McBean, a middle-school-aged cancer survivor living in the Pacific Northwest and wishing he could move to a dry climate as he walks to and from school in the rain, and Been'Tok, a worker drone Martian who doesn't really like extracting all the water from every planet his people colonize.
Been'Tok thinks Andy is treated specially because he's the supreme warrior of his race. He soon learns his mistake. Kutzera is careful to avoid the "little boy is smarter than all the adults on Earth" theme I've despised since early childhood. Andy turns to adults--his parents, friends' parents, the government officials who make contact when Andy and some other humans get into a military installation--for help and guidance, but he is the one with whom Been'Tok talked first. His insistence on peace gives Been'Tok and the other worker drones time to reflect on why they're doing all the dirty work for the "Big Head" rulers of their society, anyway.
Would Wells have approved of this child's story inspired by his novel for adults? I don't know. It's a nice long challenging read that will get middle school students through lots of study periods, which I remember as a plus point.
No comments:
Post a Comment