Book review
Hanford author's new book for young scientists/sleuths
SciFi book uses brains, not brawn for plot
By Judy Finney, Advance staff writer
Hanford educator, Joseph C. Taylor's The Disappearance of Summer Solstice takes the reader on a trip from present day Salt Lake City, Utah to the end of the universe. When a group of teens take a hike, right after graduating from 8th grade, to the mountains just outside Salt Lake City they never dream of the adventure they were about to embark upon, or the effect their journey would have on the history of the Earth.
As the teens try to get off the mountain before a lightning storm strikes they see an eerie, yet beautiful, light emanating from a set of rocks. Summer Solstice steps into this light and disappears. Her friends eventually return to the mountain top, and also enter the light in the hope of finding their friend and returning her home.
What they find is an alien who needs their help to save his planet which his people have nearly destroyed through waste or pollution. Their trip to help the alien is successful, but the alien miscalculates his return time and leave them on earth 20 years after they disappeared. Desperate for a form of energy that is storing enough to power their needs, replenishable and not polluting, the governments of the earth, including America, quickly realize how much political power any one country with the alien's knowledge would have.
The question the teens must now face is whether to call their alien friend back to save them and possibly allow one country to dominate all the others by getting the alien's energy knowledge, or to stay in the future as prisoners.
"As a science teacher I have found that many of our students do not have basic scientific information,"explained Taylor. "That's why I have written this book. It teaches basic scientific information in a way that keeps the kids' interest and is easy for them to remember."
Taylor claims to have used this, and others of his science-based mysteries, in classrooms with positive results. Although the book is highly entertaining, there are a few problems. The book may miss the students Taylor is trying to reach because the vocabulary he uses in it is above their reading ability, a problem Taylor admits.
"I'm now recommending that teachers use the book as an oral reading experience," he said in a recent telephone interview.