“I just wanted to have a friend.”

From Bruce Coville’s Sixth-Grade Alien.

After years of searching, questioning, and wondering, the world was excited to receive not only learn of the existence of aliens, but also to receive contact and a trade deal with the residents of other planets.  When an alien ambassador arrives on earth to help manage the beginning of the trade deal, he enrolls his son, Pleskit, in school so that the alliance between aliens and humans can be even more complete.  Pleskit is placed in sixth grade, beginning to navigate the challenges of both life on earth and his forced junior ambassador status among human children.  One of Pleskit’s classmates is the space-loving Tim, who has spent years dreaming of meeting an alien, and the two boys soon form a friendship.  However, when Tim and Pleskit learn of a plan to destroy earth’s peaceful trade alliance with the aliens, things instantly go from unbelievable to deadly dangerous.  The young friends quickly realize that saving the trade mission, human-alien relationships, and maybe even the world all rests on them, so they work together to find a way to stop the sabotage before it’s too late.

This sci-fi adventure is full of humor and thrills that will help readers fly through the story, despite the sometimes odd characters or happenings.  The friendship of the two main characters when combined with their readiness to risk everything to save the world is the backbone of the book.  The outlandish, otherworldly characters will be unappealing to some readers, but anyone looking for a fun and different read will find Sixth-Grade Alien impossible to put down.