Why on Earth: An Alien Invasion Anthology

Gr 8 Up–This fun and moving collection of interconnected short stories stars a cast of teens, human and alien. Contributors include Julian Winters, Alex Brown, M.K. England, Emily Lloyd-Jones, and more. The book starts with a rescue mission gone wrong and an alien ship crashing into the Santa Monica Pier, leaving its escape pods scattered across the U.S. To fix things, it will take some interstellar cooperation between humans and aliens to complete the mission. A strength of the collection is in the superb storytelling and diversity, but there would have been more cohesion if all of the stories included alien characters; the two stories with only humans don’t quite mesh with the rest. The characters in the stories are mostly diverse with many characters of color. There is great queer representation from the humans, but also the aliens who put little importance on gender and sex. As a whole, this is a very uplifting and hopeful collection of stories that is less about first contact and more about the universal desire for love and connection. The characters are of high school age; due to the lack of sexual content and violence, this book would be appropriate for younger readers.