Silver

Gr 7 Up—Orphaned when his parents die in a plane crash, Paul Camber opts to go to Mortingham Academy, rather than live with his childless aunt and uncle. Arriving midyear, he keeps to himself, until the boarding school finds itself in a science-fiction nightmare that begins with an unusual find during a biology-lab outing. Andrew and Graham become ill after being bitten by two unusually large silvery beetles covered with circuitlike lines. The school nurse asks Paul to go for help when a storm causes a power outage, and he soon realizes that the beetles aren't the only creatures on campus morphing into aggressive, silver nano-machines. Under the direction of a favorite teacher, Paul and a loner named Mark herd healthy students into the science block, boarding up windows and doors to keep out the Infected. In a fast-paced series of battles, Mr. Sutton is killed and the students, who once disliked each other (fleshed out in separate point-of-view chapters at the start), must find common ground in order to survive. Individual strengths, such as leadership skills and science knowledge, are utilized to produce weapons, such as molotov cocktails, to stall off the rabid attackers. Tension is maintained to an uncertain end and the probability of a dystopian world in which Paul and his friends feel confident to navigate. The imaginative details of a virus that turns organic matter into circuitry will appeal to middle-grade science-fiction and horror fans as well as reluctant readers.—Vicki Reutter, State University of New York at Cortland