By Trudi Trueit
A boy wins a spot at a globe-trotting explorer school and lands in a real mystery, with codes to crack and someone who wants him gone.
Twelve-year-old Cruz Coronado leaves his home in Hawaii to join Explorer Academy, an elite school run out of a high-tech ship where a hundred and sixteen students train to be the next great explorers, scientists, divers, coders, adventurers. It should be the best thing that ever happened to him, and a lot of it is: robot bees, holographic classrooms, missions around the world. But almost as soon as he arrives, things start going wrong in ways that feel aimed at him, and Cruz begins to suspect the accidents are tied to the mother he lost years ago and the secret she left behind. It reads like a spy adventure crossed with a National Geographic special, with real science and real danger braided together.
If your child would rather watch a documentary or play a mission-based game than read, this is a clever bridge, because it looks and moves like the screens they love. The pages are full of color, photos, and gadgets, there are ciphers to crack right alongside Cruz (there's even a code running through the back of the book), and the science is the real National Geographic kind, so it scratches the same itch as a nature show. Under all that, there's a genuine mystery with stakes and a family secret pulling it forward, which is what keeps the pages turning. It gives a screen-minded child a book that feels like an interactive adventure.