Ruby Finley vs. the Interstellar Invasion

K. Tempest Bradford's Ruby Finley vs. the Interstellar Invasion is a science mystery for 8 year olds about a bug-mad girl and the strangest creature that's ever crawled across her front yard.

What happens

Ruby loves bugs. The creepy ones, the pretty ones, the ones with a thousand legs. Her Gramma does NOT, and hunts down any insect in the house with a spray bottle (and sometimes a mallet).

So when Ruby spots a strange red bug with big green eyes in the front yard, she sneaks it upstairs in a mason jar. Nothing in her insect book looks anything like it. She posts a picture on the secret Twitter account her parents don't know about, looks up, and the jar is empty. There's a perfectly round hole in the glass.

Half an hour later three black cars pull up outside. Men in suits tell Gramma it's an ordinary assassin bug from the Amazon. Ruby knows enough about assassin bugs to know that's nonsense. And who sends three cars full of agents after one insect?

What follows is a proper neighbourhood mystery. Her tweet vanishes and her tablet wipes itself. The church ladies' Facebook posts about the agents get taken down. Then things start disappearing around the area, a chunk of iron fence here and a piece of a shipping container there, cut with the same smooth, melty edges as her window screen.

Ruby works it through like the scientist she wants to be. Ask questions, make observations, form a hypothesis. It's lovely watching her cycle round the neighbourhood collecting evidence while the grown-ups blame burglars.

She's also very much a real eleven-year-old. She's grounded over the Twitter account (again), bored out of her mind without her games console, and worried her friends will forget about her. Her crew of cousins and neighbours tease each other nonstop, and the story of their banned Yo Mama war is very funny.

Would your reader spot the clues before the adults do? That's half the fun of this one.

What to read next

If your reader is the kind who keeps creatures in jars under the bed, Beetle Boy is in the library too. It's a step up in length and age, but Darkus's scientist dad vanishes from a locked room at the museum, and a giant beetle turns out to be the best help he's got.