Science Fiction - 1

TITLE: ALIENS ARE COMING!

AUTHOR: MEGHAN MCCARTHY

PUBLISHER: BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

INTERNATIONAL AND PAN-AMERICAN COPYRIGHT CONVENTIONS

COPYRIGHT: 2006

# OF PAGES: 40 PAGES

GENRE: SCIENCE/NONFICTION

         Meghan McCarthy tells of the 1938 radio broadcast. The night before Halloween, people are listening to a tango when all of a sudden the music stops! The announcer tells the people that a professor from Chicago, Illinois observed several explosions on Mars! At around 8:50P.M. a meteorite fell on a farm in New Jersey. The farmer tells the radio broadcaster that the object does not appear to look like a meteor and that it is moving. All of a sudden… several someone or somethings come out from the meteor. The farm, field, and cars start to catch on fire and spread. The announcer tells everyone that this is an army invasion from Mars! The announcer tells that Martian cylinders are falling all over the country! To know what happens next, you will have to read the book.

         The illustrator does a great job on the odd, painted illustrations. The colors are dark and some pages are black and white. This adds a connection to the story of the horror the people felt and the mysteries of Halloween. Most of the colors the illustrator uses are red adding more gloom to the story. The black and white illustrations make the reader feel like it is nighttime while they read linking the nighttime in the story to the reader. The characters look like cartoons and all have large eyes. The aliens are unpleasant and creepy, but not overdramatic.

         Content Area and Grade: Science 3^rd Grade

SCI.AAS.3.1- Identify the effect of a force applied to an object (e.g., push, pull, gravity).

         A teacher can have students study meteors and the way Earth’s gravity would affect the meteor once it come into Earth’s atmosphere.

         For a student that had a special need that may have a specific learning disability with reading, the teacher could read the story and then have students come and act out the story. The student with a learning disability would then be able to watch and observe the story acted out. For the research, the teacher could have the student with a learning disability look at pictures of meteors and watch a video to explain gravity on Earth and how it affects meteors. The student could then draw or use clay to show what a meteor looks like.