A Fantasy Friday Book Review by the Hobbit
Book: Space Boy 2
Author: Stephen McCranie
Publication Date: 2018
Suggested Age: I would suggest 12 and up.
Rating: 5 stars out of 5
Summary: Amy continues to adjust to life on earth…and begins to learns more about the mysterious boy with no “flavor”…
Review: General note to parents: Do not discount the depth of graphic stories. This is the second book compilation of a popular comic strip (We also have a review of book one). Recap: Amy’s family has returned to earth from deep space. To get back to earth they are frozen for 30 years. As we begin book two, Amy is continuing to adjust to life as a 16 year old girl on earth. She continues her (sometimes comic) interactions with her new friends in this new environment. More importantly, she speaks with Oliver
– the boy with”no flavor”.
Spoiler warning: There is a good parent child interaction (mom-daughter specifically) at the beginning. Amy has a good relationship with her parents in both books – the interaction in book two is limited but very positive. More importantly – we do not know who Oliver is. We do know that he was in deep space alone. This experience has led him to a concept of “The Nothing” and how to handle it. There are some potentially deep issues here. A couple of the discussion questions touch on these. As I said earlier – don’t discount this because it is a graphic story. It has a lot of depth in a very short space…..
I am looking forward to reading book three…
Space Boy Vol 2 Discussion questions:
(1) At the beginning Amy says she “Refuses to be sick”. She winds up very sick. Have you ever “refused to be sick”? What happened?
(2) Amy’s mom is at her bedside when she wakes up. They had an argument towards the end of book two. Amy realizes how much her mom loves her. Has there ever been a time when you were sick or hurting and your parents were there for you? Have you told them how much that meant to you?
(3) When Amy is sick Oliver starts to believe that she might not ever had existed. He has apparently lost a lot. Has there ever been a time in your life when things were turned so upside down that it seemed like past of your life was not real?
(4) Amy thinks that Oliver has unplugged from himself to cope with his pain. Have you ever felt like you were surrounded by “Nothing”? How did you cope with it?
(5) There is a scene in the lunchroom where Zeph wants to ask Amy to the homecoming dance (but is afraid to), and Amy (still adjusting to earth life) is clueless about the whole homecoming dance idea (by the way, I identify with having been clueless and afraid at that age. Still clueless but my family loves me anyway). How many of your friends are confident? How many are like Zeph? Like Amy?
Check out our review of Space Boy Vol 1 here! And our post on 2 lessons in friendship from the Space Boy Novels here!
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