Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Premise: Liam is exceptionally tall and already growing facial hair. This allows him to pose as an adult even though he is only in 6th grade. Liam poses as a teacher, test drives a Porsche, and enters a contest for a dad and a kid. Of course, Liam poses as the dad. When he discovers that the contest's prize is a trip into space in a real rocket, his "adult" life becomes quite real.

Title: Cosmic
Author: Frank Cottrell Boyce
Length: 256 pages
Genre: Science Fiction
Series or Stand-Alone: Stand-Alone
Content Appropriate for: Grades 5-7

3 stars

3 adjectives that describe this book: amusing, simple, interesting

I was really looking forward to reading Cosmic. The cover and blurb made me think that we'd be going on a fantastic space adventure. There aren't enough middle grades novels that are pure space adventures. Actually it mostly turned out to be the story of how a regular kid ended up in space. We endure training for space and trying on astronaut outfits. Boyce also spends a lot of time examining the fellow adults and kids on this space journey. This materials reminded me of the characters in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Unfortunately all of this training and character development takes up a full three-quarters of the book. They don't even make it to space until the last 50 pages or so! The segment where the characters were actually in space was wonderful! The characters experience weightlessness and space walks and moon landings. If only more of the book had been spent in space, Cosmic would have been a true adventure.