Title: The Jamie Drake Equation

Written by: Christopher Edge

Published by: Nosy Crow

This is an ideal book for young sci-fi enthusiasts. It combines real interstellar facts with fantasy to produce a unique and heart-warming story that will keep the readers turning the pages.

Written in first person narrative, Jamie retells the story of his dad, Commander Dan Drake, who is about to embark on a spacewalk as part of a mission in search of alien life. He has been orbiting the Earth in the International Space Station for several months but won’t be back in time for Jamie’s eleventh birthday.

Jamie describes how he disturbed Professor Forster, an astronomer doing unofficial investigations into signs of extra-terrestrial intelligence, at the abandoned observatory and inadvertently picked up a weird signal on his mobile phone which he tried to charge it from her laptop. The phone buzzes in his pocket and strange messages start coming through from an ancient alien civilisation known as the hi’ive, which Jamie names Buzz. When Jamie’s dad gets caught in a solar storm during his spacewalk, Jamie and Buzz have to save him.

The Jamie Drake Equation touches on the issue of divorce without labouring the point. The reader is left with the sense relationships change but they are still a family. A satisfying, thought-provoking book for mid-grade readers, which will make you laugh and cry.