cover image The Challengers

The Challengers

Greg R. Fishbone, illus. by Ethan Beavers. Lee & Low/Tu Books, $15.95 (352p) ISBN 978-1-60060-660-1

Fishbone (The Penguins of Doom) fulfills every alien-obsessed kid's dream with this first book in the Galaxy Games series, about a pressure-filled cosmic challenge between 11-year-old Tyler Sato and M'Frozza, a cheerful squidlike Mrendarian. For his birthday, Tyler's Japanese relatives name a star%E2%80%94TY SATO%E2%80%94after him, which turns out to be a spaceship heading toward Earth. Tyler ends up captaining a team of top athletes from around the world to take on a manipulative team of Easter Islandesque statues in a complicated game of tic-tac-toe. Complemented by Beavers's comic book%E2%80%93style artwork, Fishbone's narrative is ripe with kid-friendly humor%E2%80%94i.e., Earth's radio and TV transmissions are picked up by the toilets on the Mrendarian ship%E2%80%94and many of the plot twists could be straight from the "what if" imaginings of a fourth-grade classroom. However, the story can be a little too jam-packed: a subplot involving a Japanese cousin doesn't feel pertinent, and inklings of tension between Tyler and his workaholic father simply disappear. Though Fishbone clearly sets up the next book, he gives Tyler enough of a victory to leave readers satisfied. Ages 8%E2%80%9312. (Sept.)