Aliens Are Coming!

Aliens Are Coming!

Aliens Are Coming!

Written and illustrated by: Meghan McCarthy

Alfred A. Knopf, February 2006

28 pages

Fantasy Book

Aliens Are Coming! is actually a true story that happened in the 1930s. It is classified as fantasy because it was just a radio hoax performed by Orson Welles and a cast of actors based on the popular science-fiction novel The War of the Worlds. People all over the country heard this radio broadcast and actually thought that aliens were invading the Earth. Panic boomed and people were frantic. When the police arrived at the scene, nothing was there except an empty field. Orson Welles and his cast of actors had no idea what kind of panic they had created outside the radio station. At the end of his broadcast he finally said it was just a Halloween joke.

The illustrations in this book look like they were done in watercolor and paint. I like how McCarthy uses black and white with just a little bit of color in the illustrations. The text placement in this book is informal on each double-page spread. I really like the illustrations on the endpapers and the flyleaf. The space stations and rockets displayed on these pages made me very curious about the book.

This book would be appropriate for any elementary school child. There are many lessons that could go along with this book. The back of this book contains information about the real radio broadcast and more books and newspapers for further reading about the incident. Students could write their own radio broadcast after reading this book and act it out in front of the class.

Aliens Are Coming! has won many awards including: Georgia State Picture Book Award 2011, American Library Association Notable Book 2007, Maine Chickadee Award 2008, Pennsylvania Young Readers’ Choice Award 2008, Arizona Grand Canyon Readers’ Award 2008, The School Library Journal Best Books of 2006, Kirkus Reviews as an Editor’s Choice for 2006, New York Public Library One Hundred Titles for Reading and Sharing for 2006, American Booksellers for Children Best Book 2006, Cybils Award Finalist 2007, CBC-IRA Children’s Choice 2007, Young Hoosier Book Award Nominee 2008-2009, and it was recommended by Scholastic Instructor in 2009. This book is very informational and I would recommend it to anyone!