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Heartlight is T. A. Barron's debut novel and one of the few YA SF books that takes its physics seriously as both metaphor and engineering. Kate, the young protagonist, watches her physicist grandfather perfect a technology that lets him travel on beams of light. When their sun begins exhibiting odd behavior that the scientific community is not taking seriously, the two of them set out to find out what is happening.
Barron writes the science with the kind of careful curiosity that the form rewards. The relationship between Kate and her grandfather is the heart of the book. The cosmic stakes are real without being overplayed.
The book reads as middle-grade or younger YA today. The intellectual seriousness of the protagonist and the genuine wonder of the scientific premise hold up across decades.
Four stars. Recommended to young readers and to adults who want SF that respects its young audience.
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