Customer Reviews

Star Hatchling

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All I have to say is this book is better than many adult science fiction stories I have read. This author has realistic names for alien life forms. Nothing like "Gork" or "Snirk", but names that sound like they could've been here on Earth. Also, the point of view technique she uses is similar to that in "Morning Girl", but much more contrasting, and beautiful. This is a book for all ages...NO MATTER who it was written for!

I am truly sorry to see that this book has gone out of print. I have used Star Hatchling with advanced 5th grade readers for almost 10 years, and I now have to buy replacement copies from obscure, used sources.

Star Hatchling turns the traditional science fiction story on its ear. Two children discover a creature that has apparently fallen from the stars. It is horribly alien and ugly. Its habits are strange and its attempts to communicate, incomprehensible. The children keep the creature hidden while they try to figure out what it is, where it came from, and what it wants.

The twist is this: the children are amphibious beings native to a strange planet, and the hideous creature they have discovered is a human girl.

Told in multiple first person, Star Hatchling is a wonderful science fiction story designed to encourage readers to make inferences and use context clues to interpret new vocabulary. Too often, advanced readers know so much vocabulary on their own that they don't have strategies to deal with strange, new words. In Star Hatchling, they will be forced to rediscover the skill of learning new words, as they interpret the very strange vocabulary of the protagonists.

I love this book, and I love teaching it in my class. I'm off right now to grab a few more used copies for my class before they disappear. I hope the author seeks to republish this book. It deserves to be rediscovered.

If you like books about aliens and weird stuff this is a book for you.The book is called Star Hatchling.Those of you who like Margaret Bechard books this is a perfct book for you.Star Hatchling is about a boy named Cheko and a girl named Shem.They went to the forest one day and found an alien, Cheko likes it so he keeps it as a pet.Shem is not sure about this alien because it makes strange noises.The aliens name is Hanna.What is Shem going to do about the alien?Is Cheko going to let it go or keep it? The characters in Star Hatchling are preet interesting.Cheko is a nice person and he loves animals.Cheko is very interesting to know about because he does alot of interesting things in Star Hatchling.On the other hand Shem hates animals and only cares about herself.Shem is not that interesting to know about because Shem is mean and doesnt do anything interesting in Star Hatchling.So this book is with two great characters and the book is great.

Shem is a young creature living with his clan on another planet. They all decide to go visit, and explore the new world. Shem was not prepared for the landing, so Shem's pod was late to escape from the spacecraft, and he was separated from his family. Finally Shem found his family.
One day Shem, and his sister Hanna decide to go exploring. While they were exploring they got lost, and ended up in a cave where they met Twig. Once they found their family they kept things quiet about Twig. They kept on bringing Twig food and water, and one day they brought Twig back to his star where he cane from. Then a couple days later Twig's star blasts off back into space, and Hanna and Shem are very sad.
Then one day Shem's clan marches to where some outsiders live. Shem and Hanna were asked to come in, and they were locked up. One night an outsider named Mica helped Shem and Hanna to escape. Then they all set off to find Shem and Hanna's clan. Once they are reunited with their clan Mica leaves. Then they set off for . . .
I enjoyed this book, but there are parts that are a little confusing. I recomend this book to people ages 11 to 14 who like science fiction. So if you are looking for a good science fiction book why not read Star Hatchling.