Clem Hetherington and the Ironwood Race

Reviewed by: Jill O'Connor - Harriet Beecher Stowe Elementary School, Brunswick, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: July 9, 2018

Review

An excellent GN for the 3rd through 7th grade readers. Breach has crafted an exciting, mostly plausible (for the sci-fi genre), humorous script to which Holgate has lushly and expertly illustrated. While the story is filled with sci-fi tropes (orphan with a robot brother/side-kick, on-the-run hero, desert pod race with various alien thugs, predictable friend-turned-villain), the GN works because protagonist Clem is plucky, the race scenes are fantastic, and the story has enough action and suspense to keep the young reader of this format turning pages. Will wanna-be archaeologist Clem find the artifacts, win the race, and be taken seriously? Readers of Zita the Spacegirl and Cleopatra in Space will eat this book up and clamor for Book 2.

Overall Book Score: very good