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We Dream of Space

A Newbery Honor Award Winner

by Erin Entrada Kelly

Narrator Ramon de Ocampo

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Length 5 hours 55 minutes

Language English

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Bookseller recommendation

“If you liked My Jasper June, definitely read this. It follows three siblings, all in 7th grade, who confront their own problems in 1986 leading up to the Challenger Launch. Seemingly in their own worlds, the three orbit one another and coexist in the 'machine' that is their family and the galaxy system that is school and their town. Set against the backdrop of the fateful Challenger Launch, the siblings are each on a journey of discovery, both bad and good, ultimately leading back to one another. We Dream of Space touches on bullying, not fitting in, fighting parents, and hardships of breaking away from toxic friends, teaching lessons of owning who you are, what you want, and your own responsibility to yourself and the people who surround you.”
— Emma • Content

Summary
About the author

Newbery Honor Book

“A captivating story about family’s enduring bonds.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Another wondrous title from a remarkably talented author.” —Booklist (starred review)

“A 10 out of 10. Anyone interested in science, sibling relationships, and friendships will enjoy reading We Dream of Space.” —Time for Kids

Newbery Medalist and New York Times–bestselling author Erin Entrada Kelly transports readers to 1986 and introduces them to the unforgettable Cash, Fitch, and Bird Thomas in this pitch-perfect middle grade novel about family, friendship, science, and exploration. A great choice for readers of Kate DiCamillo, Rita Williams-Garcia, and Rebecca Stead.

Great for summer reading or anytime! A Today show pick for “25 children’s books your kids and teens won’t be able to put down this summer!""

Cash, Fitch, and Bird Thomas are three siblings in seventh grade together in Park, Delaware. In 1986, as the country waits expectantly for the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger, they each struggle with their own personal anxieties.

Cash, who loves basketball but has a newly broken wrist, is in danger of failing seventh grade for the second time. Fitch spends every afternoon playing Major Havoc at the arcade on Main and wrestles with an explosive temper that he doesn’t understand. And Bird, his twelve-year-old twin, dreams of being NASA’s first female shuttle commander, but feels like she’s disappearing.

The Thomas children exist in their own orbits, circling a tense and unpredictable household, with little in common except an enthusiastic science teacher named Ms. Salonga. As the launch of the Challenger approaches, Ms. Salonga gives her students a project—they are separated into spacecraft crews and must create and complete a mission. When the fated day finally arrives, it changes all of their lives and brings them together in unexpected ways.

Told in three alternating points of view, We Dream of Space is an unforgettable and thematically rich novel for middle grade readers.

Children's

Erin Entrada Kelly was awarded the Newbery Medal for Hello, Universe, and a Newbery Honor for We Dream of Space. She grew up in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and now lives in Delaware. She is a professor of children’s literature in the graduate fiction and publishing programs at Rosemont College, where she earned her MFA, and is on the faculty at Hamline University. Her short fiction has been nominated for the Philippines Free Press Literary Award for Short Fiction and the Pushcart Prize. Before becoming a children’s author, Erin worked as a journalist and magazine editor and received numerous awards for community service journalism, feature writing, and editing from the Louisiana Press Association and the Associated Press.

Erin Entrada Kelly’s debut novel, Blackbird Fly, was a Kirkus Best Book of the Year, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, an ALSC Notable Book, and an Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature Honor Book. She is also the author of The Land of Forgotten Girls, winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature; You Go First, an Indie Next Pick; Lalani of the Distant Sea, an Indie Next Pick; Those Kids from Fawn Creek, named to numerous best-of-the-year lists; the acclaimed The First State of Being; and four popular novels for younger readers, Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey, Surely Surely Marisol Rainey, Only Only Marisol Rainey, and Felix Powell, Boy Dog, which she also illustrated.