LIGHTNING BUGS AND ALIENS

In Babka’s speculative historical middle-gradenovella, a life-changing event leads a boy to pursue a better future for humankind.

In the summer of 1959, 13-year-old Ben witnesses a car bomb go off in his tiny town of Twinsburg, Ohio; the explosive kills Ben’s grandfather’s mob-affiliated friend. Ben’s teenage pals Chip Dawson, Bobby Kollman, and Mark Garnett are all supportive and listen to his worries afterward while also sharing some of their own anxieties. If that wasn’t enough to keep the teens on edge, there’s been talk about the threat of atomic bombs, with duck-and-cover drills in school becoming commonplace: “None of us who actually thought about it felt re-assured,” Ben narrates. The adults say it’s not for young people to worry about. After watching a scary movie and listening to a radio broadcast about flying saucers, the boys’ imaginations start to run wild—and eventually lead them to formulate a plan to try and find aliens in Twinsburg.The kids come up with a scheme to find outer-space creatures, see what they want, and scare them away from Earth, if need be. Worried they’ll be outnumbered and overwhelmed, they recruit Isiah Robinson, a classmate who’s good with a baseball bat, which they see as a formidable weapon against alien invaders. Soon, they have an experience that changes their lives and sets them on a path to potentially changing the world. In this book, Babka ably expresses what small-town life is like, and how easily hysteria, and a lack of transparency about major events, can set young minds on grand—and potentially dangerous—adventures. The author doesn’t shy away from showing the reality of racial segregation; Isiah, who’s Black, lives in a different part of town than the other kids, who are white; the latter create a pact to stand up to local racists. While the author is clearly passionate about the town, its residents, and the period, and he provides lots of detail in his worldbuilding, more focus on the boys’ adventures and experiences would have been welcome.

A somewhat overstuffed coming-of-age tale, but one with plenty of heart.