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David Horn
Author
Winter Storm Eudora (Eudora Space Kid Book 5)
David Horn, author

Picture Book; Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror; (Publish)

A snowstorm on a spaceship? It’s all Eudora’s fault. Book 5 in the Eudora Space Kid series, Winter Storm Eudora is a hilariously funny, early reader sci-fi chapter book perfect for elementary-aged kids. Eudora is a normal third grader who just happens to live on a 36 deck AstroLiner. In SPACE! As a math and science whiz who’s been adopted by what you might call . . . aliens, she has normal ambitions—like being the chief engineer on an AstroLiner. But when Eudora tries to get her ship a snow day by tricking its mathematical weather models into predicting a snowstorm, can she keep the fake storm from snowballing out of control? Or will she end up in the ship’s brig? Again . . . Brilliant for engaging emergent and early chapter book readers.
Reviews
The year is 4022, and third-grader Eudora Jenkins returns for the latest in Horn’s Eudora Space Kid series (after The Greatest Matchmaker in Space!) As always, Eudora—whose dream is to be the chief engineer of her spaceship home, the Athena—is full of mischief, and this time she’s taking on the fundamentals of math. When Eudora informs her teacher, Miss Allison, that she’s recalculated the value of pi, Miss Allison is understandably shocked, and Eudora’s revelation triggers an upheaval onboard. Soon, to stay true to Eudora’s new calculations, all the circles on the ship are changed into “squashed ovals,” a shift that causes quite the ruckus.

Once again, Horn’s descriptions of life in space steal the show. As Eudora muses on how the ship’s recreational activities are changed by her discovery—soccer, that “ancient Earth game with polkadot balls” is fun, but the players are being injured by the new oval-shaped balls—she vows to distract her friends and family from their problems. Her newest bigger-than-life idea is to engineer a snow day for the ship, by breaking into the weatherman’s computer and adjusting his forecast to predict an incoming storm. Obviously, that news throws the ship into chaos, especially when the model malfunctions and forecasts up to 150 feet of snow in one day.

Of course, Eudora ultimately jumps in to clean up her mess and learns some valuable lessons in the process, including how playing tricks on others can have unintended consequences—and why the value of pi should probably be left alone. Tondora delights with entertaining black and white illustrations that showcase Eudora’s side-splitting exploits, and Horn includes a tutorial on measuring pi in the backmatter. To top off all the fun, Eudora lands a job as the ship’s “official backup weather kid” in the end, a pretty good feat for the galaxy’s most audacious space kid.

Takeaway: Intergalactic adventure that pairs inventive fun with important life lessons.

Comparable Titles: J.I. Wagner’s Legacy of the Inventor, Stuart Gibbs’s Spy Camp.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

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