The Accidental Spaceship (review)

Pilot and Navigator used to be Vernon and Junior, ordinary thirteen-year-old twins living with their grandfather in a small Pennsylvania town. The name change comes along with another dramatic change in their lives—the delivery of a 700-foot spaceship from the future, the result of felicitous computer error. Discovering that the state intends to make a fat killing from their surprising vehicle by hitting the brothers with a tax bill for nearly two million dollars, they decide the only thing to do is to become intergalactic space traders, relying on their natural haggling abilities and the guidance of Thinker, the robot brain of the spaceship (the tax bill is almost an unnecessary motivation, since who wouldn't give a futuristic spaceship at least one test drive?). First-time children's author Hunt has a knack for creating believable characters with depth; Pilot and Navigator are both well-developed characters as individuals but also function perfectly as a well-honed and unstoppable twin sales team in spite of their differences. The book plays fast and loose with a few scientific and logical elements, but that is unlikely to trouble the intended audience, who will zip right through this exciting romp, cheer for the remarkable success of the twins, and hope for a sequel.