Recommended Ages: Gr. 4-6 (no pictures, fairly small text)

Plot Summary: Luciana is THRILLED her dream of attending space camp is finally coming true. She entered the essay contest to win a scholarship for 2 (or 3?) years and finally won! When her parents drop her off, she's a little worried about being so far away from home for 6 days, and she's also wondering what will happen with the baby they're trying to adopt from Chile. Will her big dream of becoming a big sister finally come true? How will Luciana do in the robot competition?

Setting: space camp, parents live 3 states away, trying to adopt a baby from Chile (grandparents still live there)

Characters:

Recurring Themes: robots, STEM, STEAM, space camp, friendship, adoption, becoming an older sibling, cheating, morals, ethics, teamwork

Controversial Issues: none that I'm aware of

Personal Thoughts: I will admit I skimmed this one very quickly in order to write a letter to a student about it. However, I think I got a bunch of main ideas. It seems very heavy on science terminology--I'm not sure how well the science terms were first introduced. At some point I should go back and reread for the ethical problem. It may be a good class discussion. It seems like Luciana's team somehow cheated at the robotics competition and were eliminated. I liked how the ending still managed to be happy while still facing the consequences, even if they were unrealistic.

Genre: realistic fiction, STEM

Pacing: medium (science terminology)
Characters:
Frame:
Storyline:

Activity:

Luciana discovers that Space Camp isn't as easy as she thought it would be and she's not the only star there. She's met with team members who want to compete and be in charge rather than accept her as a leader, and she needs to figure out what it means to be a leader. I was a little disappointed that robot camp was combined with Space Camp (and made the center of the story) when space was what Luciana was originally interested in. ( )