The Summer Experiment by Cathie Pelletier (review)

Even though it’s still summer, eleven-year-old Roberta has struck upon a surefire way to win her school’s upcoming science fair: she and her best friend Marilee will make contact with the UFOs spotted above their town of Allagash, Maine, in hopes of being abducted (and, of course, returned). It’s perhaps the most harebrained of Roberta’s many schemes, which she relays through frank and familiar narration, but it’s one worth the danger just to beat her arch nemesis, Henry Horton Harris Helmsby, aka “The 4Hs of the Apocalypse.” Before they can put their plan into action, Roberta suffers the loss of her beloved grandfather, Marilee runs away in protest of her father’s new girlfriend, and both girls must endure the (not completely unwelcome) teasing of Roberta’s older brother and his friend, all while Allagash goes topsy-turvy with talk of UFO sightings. The book uses a light but deft touch in melding the serious with the comic, creating in the spunky Roberta a balanced and believable heroine feeling the first pangs of encroaching adolescence. Pelletier takes familiar themes—friendship, sibling rivalries, grief—and interweaves them with an unusual but enjoyable plotline; after all, how often do middle-grade protagonists experience alien abduction? Readers will enjoy the originality and accessibility of this humorous hike through remote northern Maine—interest in UFOs not required.