Book: Winell Road by Kate Foster

Genre: Middle Grade Sci-fi

Winell Road is the the most boring road in the world. At least, according to Jack Mills. He’s 12 years old and convinced that his home is the last place in the world that anything exciting could or would ever happen. That is, until he spots a UFO flying nearby his house. The adventures only continue as he is approached by aliens and plunged into a world of alternately terrifying and mind-blowing discoveries. Aided by the unnaturally tall girl next door, Jack sets out to figure out what is really going on in Winell Road.

I have to admit–it’s been a long time since I read any middle grade fiction, but when I was approached by the author about reviewing this book, I was pretty excited about it. Even though it isn’t a genre I read a lot of, I do have a younger brother and it’s fun to be able to read/review books that he might enjoy. So, Sam, this one’s for you 😉
As I mentioned in the beginning, Winell Road is sci-fi, and there’s quite a lot of aliens, and action/adventure going on. The plot moves along at a nice clip and there’s not really any time to ever get bored with it. Jack is a pretty funny kid, and so there’s a good bit of humor as well. Some of the humor was definitely geared towards middle grade boys, but hello, that’s the target demographic. It was age appropriate, but not so middle-grade that an older person couldn’t enjoy it.
The tone of the book was pretty casual and sometimes the dialogue felt rushed to me, but I really think that’s just because I haven’t read middle grade fiction in so long. It’s an interesting lane between children’s picture books and YA fiction, marked by mixing great, motive stories and a slightly easier reading level, and I think this book definitely accomplished that. Exciting adventure story and motive plot, but at a younger reading level.

I would definitely recommend this for the crowd of adventuresome 9-12 year olds, and I’m actually going to personally recommend it to my own 9yo brother. If there’s a kid in your life who likes adventure stories, and maybe even some aliens (and let’s face it, what kid doesn’t?) this is the perfect book to get them reading over the holiday weekend.

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Updated to add: Winell Road is soon to be available for purchase through Amazon, but for now, you can purchase it directly from the publisher here