Fantasy Rock by Joy Cowley

This modern fantasy/science fiction chapter book is relatively short, but is packed with adventure! In this book, Conrad joins his mother, who is the captain of a space craft called, The Phoebus, on a mission to collect a load of flash rock from Chiron and bring it back to Mars. This mission proves to be intense for several reasons. First, flash rock is “the most dangerous ore in the universe”. In fact, flash rock is very unstable and must be kept at the right temperature or it will explode. Second, one member of the crew did not want Conrad to be on the space craft at all. But, when the computer controls fail and temperatures start to rise in the wagon filled with flash rock, Conrad is the only person on the space craft who can squeeze through the tiny hole in an attempt to fix their problems. Conrad manages to solve the space crafts technical problems in the nick-of-time and saves the mission from disaster. This book really kept me on the edge of my seat! I can only imagine how elementary students would react to such an amazing story. I feel that this book would be great to use as an example of fantasy during a Reading lesson on different genres. In addition, I believe this book can show students how sometimes we need to use our imaginations to understand/write a story.