2024 Blogging A to Z Challenge: Science Fiction

I can’t believe we’re heading into the homestretch of this challenge with the letter “S”! Today’s list is full of middle grade and young adult book titles that all fall squarely into the science fiction/adventure genre. Now, like fantasy, science fiction isn’t necessarily my favorite genre. When books reach to far beyond the real world, I have trouble falling along. But, for some readers, science fiction is their jam! They love the dystopian novel, the novel set in futuristic outer space, or the novel with robots living alongside humans.

I will also caveat my statement about science fiction with the fact that even though I think I don’t like the genre as a whole, I’m always willing to try something new. For example, Cinder, is a steampunk version of Cinderella and while science fiction might not be my thing, fairy tale retellings most definitely are and I really enjoyed that book. Finding the right book for kids is tricky, they have very discerning palates and you do them a disservice if you completely remove an entire genre from the table. So, keep that in mind when kids ar looking for books to read or aren’t even sure where to start!

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2024 Blogging A to Z Challenge: Science Fiction

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . .

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

Two boys, alone in space. Sworn enemies sent on the same rescue mission.

Ambrose wakes up on the Coordinated Endeavor with no memory of a launch. There’s more that doesn’t add up: evidence indicates strangers have been on board, the ship’s operating system is voiced by his mother, and his handsome, brooding shipmate has barricaded himself away. But nothing will stop Ambrose from making his mission succeed—not when he’s rescuing his own sister.

In order to survive the ship’s secrets, Ambrose and Kodiak will need to work together and learn to trust each other . . . especially once they discover what they are truly up against. Love might be the only way to survive.

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

After the 1st wave, only darkness remains. After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, only one rule applies: trust no one.

Now, it’s the dawn of the 5th wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth’s last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker may be Cassie’s only hope for rescuing her brother–or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up.

Fuzzy by Tom Angleberger

When Max—Maxine Zelaster—befriends her new robot classmate Fuzzy, part of Vanguard One Middle School’s new Robot Integration Program, she helps him learn everything he needs to know about surviving middle school—the good, the bad, and the really, really, ugly. Little do they know that surviving seventh grade is going to become a true matter of life and death, because Vanguard has an evil presence at its heart: a digital student evaluation system named BARBARA that might be taking its mission to shape the perfect student to extremes!

Hana Hsu and the Ghost Crab Nation by Sylvia Liu

Hana Hsu can’t wait to be meshed.

If she can beat out half her classmates at Start-Up, a tech school for the city’s most talented twelve-year-olds, she’ll be meshed to the multiweb through a neural implant like her mom and sister. But the competition is fierce, and when her passion for tinkering with bots gets her mixed up with dangerous junkyard rebels, she knows her future in the program is at risk.

Even scarier, she starts to notice that something’s not right at Start-Up—some of her friends are getting sick, and no matter what she does, her tech never seems to work right. With an ominous warning from her grandmother about being meshed, Hana begins to wonder if getting the implant early is really a good idea.

Desperate to figure out what’s going on, Hana and her friends find themselves spying on one of the most powerful corporations in the country—and the answers about the mystery at Start-Up could be closer to home than Hana’s willing to accept. Will she be able to save her friends—and herself— from a conspiracy that threatens everything she knows?

Jennifer Chan Is Not Alone by Tae Keller

Sometimes middle school can make you feel like you’re totally alone in the universe . . . but what if we aren’t alone at all?

Thanks to her best friend, Reagan, Mallory Moss knows the rules of middle school. The most important one? You have to fit in to survive. But then Jennifer Chan moves in across the street, and that rule doesn’t seem to apply. Jennifer doesn’t care about the laws of middle school, or the laws of the universe. She believes in aliens—and she thinks she can find them.

Then Jennifer goes missing. Using clues from Jennifer’s journals, Mallory goes searching. But the closer she gets to answers, the more Mallory has to confront why Jennifer might have run . . . and face the truth within herself.

The Last Human by Lee Bacon

In the future, robots have eliminated humans, and 12-year-old robot XR_935 is just fine with that. Without humans around, there is no war, no pollution, no crime. Every member of society has a purpose. Everything runs smoothly and efficiently. Until the day XR discovers something impossible: a human girl named Emma.

Now, Emma must embark on a dangerous voyage with XR and two other robots in search of a mysterious point on a map. But how will they survive in a place where rules are never broken and humans aren’t supposed to exist? And what will they find at the end of their journey?

Moongarden by Michelle A. Barry

Centuries ago, Earth’s plants turned toxic, rendering life on the planet impossible, and humanity took to space to cultivate new homes. Myra Hodger is in her first year at an elite school on the Moon to train and develop her Creer in math as a Number Whisper—like her famous Number Whisperer parents. But she’s crumbling under the pressure, she doesn’t fit in, and worst of all, the tattoos that signal her Creer growing aren’t developing. In her heart, she knows she doesn’t have a Creer, and soon, everyone else will, too.

Wandering the school while cutting class one day, she discovers a secret lab hidden behind one of the unused classrooms, and beyond that, a secret garden overflowing with plants. Dangerous toxic plants.

But as Myra learns the garden isn’t a threat, she begins to wonder if she does have a Creer—one that died out when the Earth did. If she wants to learn the truth about the garden and herself, she’ll have to hurry. There are those who’ll do anything to take these secrets to the grave.

The Sand Warrior by Mark Siegel

The Five Worlds are on the brink of extinction unless five ancient and mysterious beacons are lit. When war erupts, three unlikely heroes will discover there’s more to themselves—and more to their worlds—than meets the eye. . .

• Oona Lee, the clumsiest student at the Sand Dancer Academy, is a fighter with a destiny bigger than she could ever imagine.
• An Tzu, a boy from the poorest slums, has a surprising gift and a knack for getting out of sticky situations.
• Jax Amboy is the star athlete who is beloved by an entire galaxy, but what good is that when he has no real friends? 

When these three kids are forced to team up on an epic quest, it will take not one, not two, but 5 WORLDS to contain all the magic and adventure!

The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow 

Can a girl who risks her life for books and an Ilori who loves pop music work together to save humanity?

When a rebel librarian meets an Ilori commander…

Two years ago, a misunderstanding between the leaders of Earth and the invading Ilori resulted in the death of one-third of the world’s population. Today, seventeen-year-old Ellie Baker survives in an Ilori-controlled center in New York City. All art, books and creative expression are illegal, but Ellie breaks the rules by keeping a secret library.

Warcross by Marie Lu

For the millions who log in every day, Warcross isn’t just a game—it’s a way of life. The obsession started ten years ago and its fan base now spans the globe, some eager to escape from reality and others hoping to make a profit. Struggling to make ends meet, teenage hacker Emika Chen works as a bounty hunter, tracking down Warcross players who bet on the game illegally. But the bounty-hunting world is a competitive one, and survival has not been easy. To make some quick cash, Emika takes a risk and hacks into the opening game of the international Warcross Championships—only to accidentally glitch herself into the action and become an overnight sensation.

Convinced she’s going to be arrested, Emika is shocked when instead she gets a call from the game’s creator, the elusive young billionaire Hideo Tanaka, with an irresistible offer. He needs a spy on the inside of this year’s tournament in order to uncover a security problem . . . and he wants Emika for the job. With no time to lose, Emika’s whisked off to Tokyo and thrust into a world of fame and fortune that she’s only dreamed of. But soon her investigation uncovers a sinister plot, with major consequences for the entire Warcross empire.

Weird Kid by Greg Van Eekhout

Jake Wind is trying to stay under the radar. Whose radar? Anyone who might be too interested in the fact that he has shapeshifting abilities he can’t control. Or that his parents found him as a ball of goo when he was a baby.

Keeping his powers in check is crucial, though, if he wants to live a normal life and go to middle school instead of being homeschooled (and if he wants to avoid being kidnapped and experimented on, of course).

Things feel like they’re going his way when he survives his first day of school without transforming and makes a new friend. But when mysterious sinkholes start popping up around town—sinkholes filled with the same extraterrestrial substance as Jake—and his neighbors, classmates, and even his family start acting a little, well, weird, Jake will have to learn to use his powers in order to save his town. 

2024 is my ninth year participating in the Blogging A to Z Challenge. This year, I chose as my theme: Adventurous Readers with a focus on providing book lists focused on all types of adventures for readers from birth to teens. Each letter of the alphabet will focus on different sub-genres or age groups and will provide twelve titles of books. This theme coincides well with the summer reading theme for many libraries which is “Adventure Begins at Your Library” and no matter what type of books the kids in your life like, there is sure to be something they’ll find interesting over the course of the month. Stop by daily to check out the new books and other posts that I’ll be sharing in April.