George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition) Library Binding – May 24, 2011

To save the universe, at least Earth, Annie and George must get to Mars, but Cosmo's the super computer isn't working, thus the two can't even get to the moon. "George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt" is another well written story for those who enjoy intelligent young adult stories with interesting facts about Venus and Mars. Both these planets have water, the main ingredient for all life, yet Mars and Venus are not in the Goldilocks Zone. The Goldilocks Zone is a term many scientist use to describe Earth's atmosphere, I learned that from reading this book. Remember Goldilocks and the Three Bears, the baby's things are all 'just right,' hence, Earth, it's the only known planet in the Goldilocks Zone, like the baby's porridge, not too hot, not too cold. Venus has temperatures up to 878 degrees, a bit hot for us humans, and the water on Venus is dried up. There are way to many facts about or neighboring planets pointed out in this book to list. This book along with the other two books featuring the cool kids, George and Annie are books well worth keeping and reading several more times.

This is the second book in the Hawkings' George series. Once again their offering was a big hit with both my 5th grade students and my own children, 5 and 8.This book centers on the question of the possibilities of life elsewhere in the universe. George's next door neighbors move to Florida at the beginning of the book so that Eric, the scientist father, can oversee a Mars rover landing. This of course upsets George, but before long he gets an email from Annie telling him he has to find a way to visit her in Florida for a top secret mission. George's Grandma comes to his rescue with money for plane tickets to Florida for him and her as a chaperone, as well as money for George's parents to go visit an island slowly being affected by rising seas due to global warming.Once George gets there he finds that Annie has found a secret message demanding she go to Mars or the Earth will be destroyed. He also meets Emmett, a computer genius child, staying with Annie's family. Emmett and Annie don't get along at the beginning of the book and Emmett is portrayed as a stereotypical whiny computer geek. However, Annie soon learns to respect Emmett and they all go off on an adventure across the Galaxy using Cosmos the supercomputer (helpfully restored to functionality by Emmett). They believe an alien race must have sent the message. They end up finding a series of clues which lead them ever farther away from Earth and our solar system.In this book George and Annie learn that geeky supposedly annoying people are actually pleasant, fun, and helpful once you learn to treat them respectfully. Yes that lesson was rather cardboard-cutoutish... More importantly they learn about all the scientific issues around the search for extraterrestrial life. Eric, the scientist, also manages to come to the rescue of George's eco-activist parents and provides this particular book's treatment of one of the series's recurring morals, that scientists can help people who are concerned about the environment. Science is not bad for the environment. That particular message seems to be one the Hawkings really want to hammer home. Finally, there are good messages about forgiveness and the wrongness of jumping to conclusions about people without sufficient evidence.The book's story is interspersed with essays about various aspects of the scientific question of extraterrestrial life and space exploration in general. Once again there are full color Hubble pictures. Some of the science essays are once again over the heads of many elementary school students although it is obvious the essay writers were attempting to be easy to understand and interesting.The plot holds the attention of elementary school children very well and is quite exciting to them. As an adult, however, it is easy to spot many unduly contrived devices. For instance, the idea that an elementary school aged child could fix and reprogram a quantum computer which could not be fixed by Eric, one of the adult scientists who actually created it, beggers belief. There is also an issue with Cosmos which comes up that somehow stops him from being able to teleport the children back to Earth, but conveniently lets him teleport them ever further away from Earth. This, of course, makes no sense from an adult reader's point of view, but children accept this fact without fuss.The real worth of this book is not the plot, though. It is all the science information the book manages to pack into the story. Children will learn a lot about a truly scientific outlook on the issue of extraterrestrial life. They will also pick up many space facts. Children reading this book, or hearing it read to them, will enjoy learning all the science. Adults sharing the book with children will enjoy the book simply due to the science content they know their children or students are picking up. I am unaware of another series of fiction books for this age group that does the job of science education as well as this series.

Purchased all three books for my seven year old grandchild. His parents read to him every night so, I thought this series would be perfect. After thefirst night he said he wanted to read them himself. His school requires a daily home reading diary. After the first week, his teacher noted in the diarythat he should be reading a variety of subject matter. My daughter noted in the diary, "Only a surgeon could get these books out of his hands."

I took my son to The Space Show at the Museum of Natural History several times which he loved so much. I thought I can gradually add more information about space to our daily routine and being a huge fan of Stephen Hawking I found this cook which he co-wrote with his beloved daughter, Lucy. We read the book together every night, it has almost 300 pages and not only did we enjoy doing this together but also learned so much about space through the narrative, a more useful way to remember facts for 6 year olds than reading off an educational book. While we read it we changed the names of all the characters to us and people we know in real life. Amazing weeknights for the entire week.

The science for kids aspect is fine, but the story telling is very stilted and forced, really a bit of a painful read overall. If they authors weren't so intent on trying to make it a series of science lessons wrapped in a thin layer of a story they would have done a much better job (slight irony in a names, but the PBS 'Curious George' episodes are excellent examples of teaching science in every episode while presenting it in a highly engaging story telling fashion)

She has a reading disability so she got the book and the audiobook so she can read along. She remembers what she's heard/read better, but really enjoys learning the science with these books. I enjoy listening with her.

Great book! I bought the series of three books along with the CDs to give to my grandson on his ninth birthday. In the meantime, I listened to the CDs on my way to work and just loved them. Stephen Hawkings along with his daughter Lucy, and Garry Parsons did a wonderful job of writing a story that was very entertaining while teaching me more about this interesting universe of ours. These books are for all ages!

MT GRANDSON LOVED IT AND IS READING ALL THE BOOKS BY LUCY HAWKING AND DR STEPHEN HAWKING.AT 6 YEARS OLD BEN READS BEAUTIFULLY SO ALL 3 GENERATIONS AVIDLY LISTEN AND ENJOY THE BOOKS!!