Intended Audience: Teens and Mature Tweens
Genre: Real life / Speculative
Notes for parents: Some mature scenes and coarse language.
The Inside Cover
Mal lives on the fringes of high school. Angry. Misunderstood. Quiet, but with a lot of words underneath.
Years ago, Mal disappeared for three days. Everyone tells him it was a breakdown, a seizure, something medical. He thinks it was something different. An alien abduction.
But there’s no way for him to know for sure.
Then, at an abductees support group, he meets Hooper, who has some otherworldly secrets of his own. And suddenly the truth is closer than Mal ever imagined it could be.
What the Back Cover doesn’t tell you:
Mal’s mother is an alcoholic and his father abandoned him years ago. This is a story about alienation – actual and/or metaphorical.
What’s good?
This is a wonderfully adept character study of a lonely boy who wishes people knew the real him. When he meets the quirky, well-drawn Hooper, Mal has found a kindred spirit. It reads more like a short story – not surprising since it’s only 150 pages and some chapters are only a few lines long – but in its brief telling, the story touches on everything from friendship to family, abandonment, loneliness, identity, loss, and the need to feel loved. Most of all, this seems to be a story of hope. The first person, present tense point of view works well.
Best part: I love that Mal helps animals because he can’t stand seeing anything abandoned like he was.
What’s not so good?
Although Mal is the logical main character, he was definitely not the most interesting. I would love to have heard the story told from Hooper’s or Darwyn’s perspective. Having said that, Mal’s lack of character is not a story flaw and I only mention it because I couldn’t think of anything else to write under this heading.
Worst part: None.
Recommendations þþþþo
I reluctantly give this four checks, but it definitely deserves better than three. By no means a blockbuster, First Day on Earth is an honest, unassuming tale of a human being. The short chapters keep it well-paced and it has just the right amount of humor, drama, and adventure. Recommended.
Castellucci, Cecil. First Day on Earth. New York: Scholastic, 2011. (Hardcover)
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