George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt by Lucy & Stephen Hawking

An excellent chapter book for children of the right age range. The plot is fairly simplistic, though, so I wouldn't recommend it as adult reading for purposes of enjoyment ... although it's also not an unpleasant book to read aloud to your child. It could be a very good way to get a child who enjoys reading interested in science, though.

In George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt, authors Lucy and Stephen Hawking pick up where their first children's novel, George's Secret Key to the Universe left off. In this squel, young George's neighbors, including his young friend Annie Bellis, move away from England to the United States. Annie's father, Eric, has been hired to work for the Global Space Agency on searching the universe for life.

When George receives an urgent message from Annie that she needs help, he convinces his parents to let him travel to Florida to visit them. It turns out that Annie believes she has received a coded message from outer space and together with George, and the brilliant (if socially inept) young boy Emmett, they seek out to restore the broken computer Cosmos that can take them into outer space to discover the secret behind the message. Unfortunately, Eric doesn't believe the message is real nor that Cosmos can be repaired, so they have to do it in secret.

In many ways, this book was superior to the original volume in the series, but as a work of fiction it falls short of expectations. There are a number of points where the plot just doesn't make sense. For example, the kid genius Emmett is able to repair Cosmos in a few days, while Eric and his entire society of scientific colleagues have been unable to.

As a work of young adult fiction, there's no way that it could compete with a Harry Potter, Ender's Game, or even a Fablehaven. However, I also think that this book is aimed at an even younger audience than any of those books. The emphasis of this book is to introduce young children to the scientific principles involved in science exploration, the search for extra-terrestrial life, and other aspects of space science. The plot is really just a vehicle for that introduction, though, and in that sense serves its purpose.