Eyes on the Sky

When their parents’ deaths force 12-year-old Dorothy Duncan’s older brother Dwight to leave the Army to care for her, impulsive, science-minded Dorothy worries that she’s cost him an impressive military career. The bickering and resentful siblings live on a dusty, rundown ranch in New Mexico, where Dwight looks for crop-dusting jobs and Dorothy tests amateur fireworks and confides in their old sheep Geraldine. After an explosion lights up the sky following the disastrous launch of her weather balloon powered by homemade hydrogen, Dorothy fears that her experiment may have brought down an aircraft from the nearby Roswell Air Force base. Enlisting the help of tween Hugo to locate the potential wreckage, Dorothy attracts the attention of shadowy FBI agents and, upon discovering a mysterious object in a cave glowing with otherworldly flora, begins to wonder if the government is covering up something extraterrestrial. Though it’s slow to start, this historical tale by Kramer (The List of Unspeakable Fears) soon takes off with the incorporation of science fiction elements, and the meticulous, expertly rendered 1947 desert setting enhances its thrilling conclusion. Main characters read as white. Ages 8–12. Agent: Jennifer Carlson, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary. (Oct.)