Before Tomorrowland

April 1, 2015

Gr 5-8-In 1939, 17-year-old Lee Brackett accompanies his mother, Clara, to New York City. She wants to experience the World's Fair, and he wants to see Lou Gehrig play his final game before retirement. Clara, who is in the final stages of cancer, brings along a costume to better to blend in with the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers wannabes at the World Science Fiction Convention. When she's given a comic book and special glasses, reality starts to bend. Chapter narrations move among various characters: Lee and Clara; members of Plus Ultra (such as Amelia Earhart, Albert Einstein, and Orson Welles); and pro-Nazis and their weaponized robots. Lee and Clara encounter physicists, pacifists, robots, humans with computerized brains, Hitler's henchmen, and an invisible Zeppelin, while occasionally traveling through space and time. Fans of superhero comics and blockbusters will easily imagine the action scenes. Occasional black-and-white illustrations accompany the text and a four-color comic book is bound at the back. In a twist on the "book into movie" model, this prequel feels like a preemptive "movie into book" spin-off from Disney's Tomorrowland movie, due out in May 2015. VERDICT This may find traction if the movie proves popular, but is an additional purchase as a stand-alone book.-Maggie Knapp, Trinity Valley School, Fort Worth, TX

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2015
Grades 5-8 Comparisons to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen spring instantly to mind, as history's finest (Nikola Tesla, H. G. Welles, Amelia Earhart, and Albert Einstein, to name a few) join forces in the name of scientific discovery and human advancement. Operating under the name Plus Ultra, this brilliant group plans to reveal its most exciting project at the 1939 New York World's Fair, but, wouldn't you know it, the Nazis get in the way. As does a large, rampaging robot with an ability for human consciousness, locked on revenge. Thrown into the mix are 17-year-old Lee Brackett and his mother, Clara, who have come to New York for the world's first Science Fiction Convention. Mystery and action drive the narrative, while multiple character perspectives impart backstory fragments that keep the reader wanting more. Comic books play a pivotal role in the text, making the inked illustrations and minicomic at the book's end a nice touch. Though zeppelins and robots give this historic sci-fi adventure a steampunk flair, its plot is strictly high-voltage.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)