[Welcome to the EL Book Introductions series. These posts are all short (<180 words) introductions/reviews of books in the EL library. They focus on telling you what we think will be interesting for you, a college student and English learner, so use them to help you find the right book for you. You can also use the tags to find books about topics you might be interested in.]
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This is the story of Rod Allbright, a 6th grader living in America. Rod is bullied, comes from a single-parent home, and has to take care of his younger brother and sister. His life is not very great…and then an alien spaceship crashes into his room and changes his life forever! Rod is forced to aid the alien crew in finding an intergalactic criminal and bringing him to justice, or perhaps be killed—or worse?—in the process.
Although I never read it before, Aliens Ate My Homework was popular when I was a child. I did not know what to expect, and it was surprisingly good! Even though this novel was written for school children and contains a lot of rude humor, the story is still interesting and the characters have heart. There are themes of bullying, family, gender (one alien is non-binary), and more.
My two cents: While most of the text is just a fun adventure story, a few lines stand out. My favorite is, when encountering a new alien species, being told: “Biology is strange and wonderful, and not subject to moral judgement.”
