What Came from the Stars - by Gary D Schmidt (Paperback)

About the Book

A peaceful civilization on a faraway planet has been besieged by a dark lord. In a desperate attempt to survive, they send their most precious gift across the cosmosNall the way to Plymouth, Massachusetts, where it's discovered by sixth-grader Tommy Pepper.

Book Synopsis

The Valorim are about to fall to a dark lord when they send a necklace containing their planet across the cosmos, hurtling past a trillion stars . . . all the way into the lunchbox of Tommy Pepper, sixth grader, of Plymouth, Mass.

Mourning his late mother, Tommy doesn't notice much about the chain he found, but soon he is drawing the twin suns and humming the music of a hanorah. As Tommy absorbs the art and language of the Valorim, their enemies target him. When a creature begins ransacking Plymouth in search of the chain, Tommy learns he must protect his family from villains far worse than he's ever imagined.

Review Quotes

"Schmidt brings high heroic fantasy and contemporary realism together in this novel."--Horn Book, starred review

"Spielberg, get ready for this boldly imagined outer-space offering."--Kirkus

"Schmidt, already a best-seller and award winner, should pick up even more fans with this crowd-pleasing fantasy."--Booklist

"Wonderfully strange. . . . This inventive and memorable story for readers ages 10-15 manages to mingle the quotidian and the movingly supernatural. It's funny, too."--The Wall Street Journal

"The balance of emotions is flawless."--Bulletin

About the Author

Gary D. Schmidt is the best-selling author of the National Book Award finalist Okay for Now, the Newbery Honor and Printz Honor book Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy, and the Newbery Honor book The Wednesday Wars. He is a professor of English at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Visit him at www.hmhbooks.com/schmidt.