The Brentwood Public Library will be closed Sunday, March 31st for Easter.

Join us for online book discussion on Wed, April 1 at 7:00 pm

Light from other stars book cover

Light from Other Stars by Erika Swyler

Long Island Reads 2020 Selection

Join us via Zoom :

https://us04web.zoom.us/j/319329183

Meeting ID: 319 329 183

 

Read our review:
Brainy, eleven-year-old Nedda, the child of scientists, lives in Easter, Florida. The town is not far from the launch site of the Space Shuttle Challenger, which has just exploded on live TV killing all the astronauts, including Dr. Judy Resnick, Nedda’s hero. Shaken, Nedda next has a bizarrely frightening experience that traps her best friend Denny in a sort of time bubble, and it is up to Nedda and her chemist mom Betheen to save him.


Erika Swyler has crafted a story that alternates between January 1986, the time of the Challenger disaster, and the future, where the Chawla is heading to a new planet to start colonization. The characters come alive with vivid personalities and quirks.  Geeky Nedda is a champion swearer, while her dad Theo struggles with crippling psoriatic arthritis. Brilliant Betheen, in 1986, has learned that “marriage meant certain things; your sense of self changed…Your accomplishments were his.”  


How did Nedda get this far into the future as a plant biologist astronaut? Does her dad and his project have anything to do with the ice suddenly appearing in Easter? This novel juxtaposes factual science (and science fiction) with the emotional, uniquely human spaces in between. Even Nedda has to step away from science sometimes, as she tells her mom: “You’re supposed to lie to me and make it feel like you’re not lying.” There are facts that science can explain, but if we truly love one another, there will be secrets to keep and lies to tell, if only to protect those we love.  


Every year the Long Island Reads Committee honors an author who is connected to Long Island and brings library communities together to read and discuss the author’s book. Erika Swyler was born and raised on Long Island and is a New York Times best-selling author and is on BuzzFead’s best fiction list.