TRIA AND THE GREAT STAR RESCUE

While newcomer Rector's futuristic tale of a girl who faces her fears to save the world has some creative and suspenseful moments, it leaves readers with some unanswered questions. Since her father died Outside, Tria won't leave her pod; she's terrified of germs and animals, and her only friend is a hologram named Star. But when her archeologist mother is kidnapped after finding a device that can make holograms solid, Tria's world changes dramatically. Following her mother's instructions, Tria stores Star on a disk and heads to South Back to Basics School, where she plots to find the device and save her mom: "Bad guys were chasing me, Mom was in danger, and my best friend was a disk in my shoe." (Later, she will need to rescue Star when her disk is stolen.) But to succeed, she must face an angry "furbeast" and enlist the help of two "real" classmates. Some of the details are clever and even comical; for instance, when Tria reassembles a robo horse to escape the school and find her mother, she mixes up parts from other technologies and inadvertently creates a "most marvelous" creature that flies and thinks with the sharp mind of her computerized teacher, Mr. Willoughby. But ultimately some flaws in logic may distract readers: for example, why do armed guards patrol the school, why does the school prohibit technology yet allow the use of robo horses, and how would an archeologist came upon such a sophisticated device on a dig? Ages 8-12. (Feb.)