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Reviewed by:
  • We Dream of Space by Erin Entrada Kelly
  • Deborah Stevenson, Editor
Kelly, Erin Entrada We Dream of Space. Greenwillow, 2020 [400p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9780062747303 $16.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9780062747327 $9.99
Reviewed from galleys R* Gr. 4-7

It’s January, 1986, and each of the three Nelson Thomas siblings has a focus: Cash is bitter at having to repeat seventh grade and angry at the limitations of his broken hand, Fitch struggles with his anger as an unpopular girl keeps approaching him in his videogame arcade sanctuary, and his twin Bird, hoping to be an astronaut herself, is obsessed with the upcoming Challenger launch. As third-person narration shifts among the three, it becomes clear that they’re each responding in their own way to family dysfunction stemming from all-too-credible parents locked in battle with no energy for anything else. As the most functional family member, Bird, who loves science and engineering and imagines nightly conversations with Challenger astronaut Judith Resnik, serves as a bit of a check on her siblings and the calm core of the novel, but readers in the know will feel the tension ramping up as the much-awaited launch date comes closer—along with the tragedy it turned out to bring. While we’ve had Challenger stories before, Newbery-winner Kelly is particularly skillful in weaving the event into the lives of her characters, especially as it serves as a metonym for all the forces in Bird’s life that insist her dreams are unachievable and that she’s doomed to failure. The understated but perceptive characterization energizes this work, and it’s by no means clear if a happy ending is coming for any of the characters or what it would look like; what does come isn’t magical, but it’s a conclusion that will hearten readers even as it does Bird.

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