Boys Rule Boys Read!: Blast Off, Space Cadet!

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Blast Off, Space Cadet!

Greetings, citizens of the Solar System! This is Commander CARLMAN, hoping you enjoyed your holidays--and are still enjoying the break! SCHOOL IS STILL OUT!! YES!!! But I'm back at work now and want to tell you about a good one, Space Cadet by Robert Heinlein. This is an oldie but a goodie, written waaaay back in the day before the first astronaut ever put on a suit. A lot of people were thinking about what space travel would really be like back then and Robert Heinlein was one of them. He was also a good writer, making good stories out of imagination and science.
It's about Matt Dobson, a young guy who has signed up to join the Space Patrol, an elite group who keep peace throughout the solar system. You've got to be incredibly tough and smart to be a Patrolman, though, and a lot of guys don't make it. The story takes Matt and his friends Oscar and Tex through the rigorous tests they have to go though just to get to Cadet status and then their hard training once they actually become cadets. But then, on their first assignment, their ship crash-lands on an unknown area of Venus. Their commander gets knocked unconscious and the ship sinks to the bottom of a swamp. Can they survive a dangerous planet and strange aliens? How could they ever get back to Earth? This is a good one for guys who like science--and good stories!
(PS--if you get this out of the library, the card catalog will say it's in Adult Science Fiction. Don't let that scare you off--this was written for boys)

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