George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt

I haven't read a book that I liked in a long time, but as you may know, I just turned 12 a few days ago. My father borrowed a new book from the library, called George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt. It is about a boy named George whose friend's father, Eric, is a genius on the universe and its wonders. He even built a supercomputer (Cosmos), but it ended up crashing by mistake. When George's friend, Annie, manages to boot up Cosmos, she found a message involving a recently landed Mars space probe. George, Annie, and Emmett, a smart but annoying boy, manage to find other clues at different locations in the universe, all with the same ending: Earth would be destroyed if the clues were not followed.

The story starts out in the Atlantis space shuttle where George, the main protagonist, is the commander of the shuttle. He gets nervous during the final moments before the shuttle finally takes off. He thinks of his family and friends he will be leaving. After the shuttle takes off, he sees that it is going into space upside-down and panics, but his pilot reassures him that they are safe. The shuttle finally emerges into space, and a very bright light is up ahead... but it turns out to be Annie Bellis, his best friend, shining a flashlight at his face. It was all a dream!

Next, George is having quite a difficult time choosing a costume to wear to a space-themed party hosted by Eric, Annie's father and a space genius who works at the Global Space Agency. In the end, George chooses a costume that resembled what appeared to be a shadow on Mars, but was actually an illusion formed by a rocky mass.

At the party, George tried to figure out what all the other costumes were supposed to be, but failed. He sees Annie and tries to guess what her costume was, guessing that it was a black hole, but Annie says her costume was dark matter. Soon, Eric arrives as what he says as "the only intelligent life-form in the universe." George tells him not to say that, or some of the scientists would get mad at him. However, Eric dismisses this, saying that this "only intelligent life-form" is a human being. He then asks his friends to explain their costumes for George, as well as to write down their favorite parts of working in the field of science.

After the party was over, Eric and his family announced that they would be moving to Florida (as they were currently living in England). He gave George a copy of The User's Guide to the Universe, which he compiled from various scientists' essays and explanations. The following day, George and Annie waved their final goodbyes before Annie left for America.

Time passed, and Annie invited George to come and visit America. Not wanting his parents to know, he e-mailed his grandmother about the trip and agreed to send her to America. When "Gran", as she was called, came the next day, George's parents objected, saying it was too expensive, but Gran immediately says she has lots of money stored under the floorboards of her house. So while George, accompanied by Gran, would be going to Florida to visit his friends, his parents would be going on an eco-tour to the Pacific Islands, which are being threatened due to rising sea levels.

Upon George's arrival in Florida, Annie ducked under the rail and hugged him. She stated that there is an emergency, but also warned George not to tell anyone. George met Emmett, a short but intelligent young boy who always seemed to get on Annie's nerves ever since his parents left him with Annie's family.

Once everyone got to Annie's house, she directed George to climb the tree in her front yard, so that she could tell him a secret. It turns out she was able to reboot Cosmos, a supercomputer that had stopped working a couple of years ago, and there was a message that she had suspected had come from aliens. Upon hearing this, Emmett, who was listening from the base of the tree, immediately objected that there were aliens in the universe due to the lack of evidence. After Emmett stopped talking, Annie explained that a while ago, her family had watched a Mars probe go through some rough moments during landing, and that it was not acting properly.

Late at night, Annie and George went downstairs and onto the veranda, where Annie showed George the message. It appeared to mean that someone had to get to the Mars rover before it was too late. If they didn't arrive in time, Earth would be destroyed. After another of Annie's stories about how she found out about the "message", Eric sent the two back to bed.

The next day, George received a phone call that his parents arrived at Tuvalu, one of many stops during their eco-mission in the Pacific Islands. After this, George and Annie were in the bathroom discussing the picture and found out what it all means. Susan, Annie's mom, decided that they needed a quiet day at home rather than showing George around the town. After all, the next day would be the highlight of George's entire trip.

The group was going to see a space shuttle launch, which was a big help for Annie, as she, along with George, was going to Mars with the help of Cosmos, the supercomputer mentioned earlier that could also send people to any location in the universe. This is how George and Annie would go out into space on their "treasure hunt". However, they needed to find a place where they would not be seen. During the launch, they quietly crept to the Clean Room, which is kept at extremely high cleanliness, with less microbes and other particles in the air than normal air does. This is where astronauts go so that they would be germ-free before going into space because of the possibility that the germs would be mistaken for new life forms. George and Annie, along with Emmett, were cleaned upon entry on an assembly-line-like contraption. After the cleaning process was finished, they were sent into a completely white room. Emmett brought Cosmos, their gateway to the universe, with him, and tried to boot it up. After a long effort to boot up Cosmos, Annie and George stepped through the portal to Mars. The two had radio connections with Emmett, in case something goes wrong.

George and Annie arrived at Mars, carefully stepping on the ground and avoiding detection by the Mars probe. This was to make sure that the scientists wouldn't mistake their footprints for signs of new life-forms. They carefully examined the Mars probe and found a message similar to the one Annie found out about. This time, it showed a circle with a ring around it (Saturn) and six moons. They quickly decided that the moon they had to go to was Titan, Saturn's largest moon. They radioed to Emmett to hurry up, since a huge dust storm was approaching! A few moments later, they saw the portal to Titan.

They found themselves on a barren wasteland with a stream of a liquid substance flowing by. That liquid substance was water mixed with ammonia. The ammonia makes it freeze at -148 degrees Fahrenheit, as well as make it smell bad, but since the two were in space suits, that was less of a concern.

On the other end of the radio, Emmett was in for a surprise. Eric had come into the clean room and asked Emmett why he was here. He explained the entire situation: the messages, Cosmos, etc. He also told him that George and Annie were on Titan, finding the next clue.

Meanwhile, on Titan, George and Annie had just found a probe floating in the water-ammonia river, with the word HUYGENS and the next clue. At first, Annie thought it was a bomb, but George told her that Huygens was an exploration probe sent by the main Cassini probe in 2004. On another part of it, there was a message. This time, they had to go to a planet in what appeared to be a binary -- or two-star -- system. Eric tried to get Cosmos to work, but it didn't for a while, and methane rain was falling on Titan, which can deplete space suits. Fortunately, Eric was able to get the portal to open to the Alpha Centauri star system. All this time, however, George's father had gone missing in their eco-mission in the Pacific.

George and Annie found themselves on a planet where there were TWO "suns", not one, as Annie soon pointed out: Alpha A and Alpha B. Alpha A was setting and Alpha B was rising. The two were getting tired when Emmett radioed them, saying that Eric was on his way there. He managed to get there safe and then sending them to 55 Cancri, another star system very far away. They climbed up a rocky outcrop and saw a mysterious shadow. Then a voice went through all their microphones: "Hello, Eric, we meet again..."

It turned out to be Dr. Graham Reeper, Eric's friend-turned-enemy because of an incident with the first ever Cosmos. It took up almost an entire room! Graham was secretly planning to view the Big Bang with Cosmos, but Eric came and prevented him from doing it, since it was so dangerous and would endanger many lives due to the massive energy, heat, and pressure during the situation. Instead, the portal opened to the Sun, burning Graham's hands, before Eric told Cosmos to close the portal. This got Graham suspended from the Global Space Agency and ever since, he was planning to get revenge on the human race by using a small liquid vial, but the two kids headbutted him before he could. Eventually, he and Eric apologized to each other on what they did to each other, and promised Graham he could come back to the field of science again. Cosmos opened the portal back to Earth, and everyone returned.

Later, Emmett's parents came to pick him up, and George asked Eric if his family could go back to England with them, and he agreed. Annie and George rejoiced and celebrated that they would be together again.