Shape-Changer - Softcover

Grade 3-6-Life in the new housing development of Rolling Acres Estates is pretty dull for seventh grader Frank Dunn, until the day he finds himself conversing with a red-and-white fire hydrant. The hydrant explains that it/he is really Zymel, a policeman of the Shilad, an alien race of shape-changers, which he proves by assuming the shape of a book, an airplane model, a kitten, a girl, and more, over the course of the story. Having crash-landed on Earth and lost the dangerous prisoner he was escorting to an asteroid exile, Zymel needs Frank's help. Their urgent mission is to recapture Fek, the criminal, and find the spacecraft he has hidden away before he can repair it and go on to do more evil throughout the universe. This is science fiction of the most basic kind-a Saturday-matinee style adventure in just over 100 pages of fairly large print. With no room for serious character development or scientific explanations of the forms of space travel and alien life presented, plot is everything, and it moves rapidly to a mildly surprising and definitely satisfying conclusion. It is reminiscent of Brittain's The Fantastic Freshman (HarperCollins, 1988) in the way that it drops a mysterious alien presence into the lives of some very ordinary kids, and for that reason may appeal to a wider audience than just sci-fi fans. It may also appeal to older reluctant readers.
Susan L. Rogers, Chestnut Hill Academy, PA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.