Nominated for 2011 Cybil Awards, Young Adult Fiction category. Nominated by Kelly Jensen at Stacked.

Houston author, Jenny Moss, has written about my hometown setting, Clear Lake City, a suburb of Houston, and Johnson Space Center, the NASA facility where Engineer Husband works. Of course, when I saw such a local interest YA novel on the shelf at the library, I had to read it. And the time for a review, with the last shuttle Endeavor flight scheduled for this month, seems appropriate.

Annie Porter lives in Clear Lake, but she’s never been interested in the space program until her best friend invites her to a dinner where she’ll be able to meet Christa McAuliffe, NASA’s first Teacher-in-Space. Inspired by Christa’s zest for life, Annie, a senior in high school, decides to go to Florida to see the launch of the space shuttle Challenger.

Knowing how the story of Christa McAuliffe ends made this novel of a Texas girl torn between staying at home and venturing forth, well, a bit dark and foreboding. When the launch finally happens in the novel, even though I knew it would happen, the explosion of the Challenger was traumatic and terribly sad. Of course, Annie, who has placed almost all of her hopes and dreams for the future in her admiration for Christa McAuliffe, is devastated.

But Annie recovers and goes on to make a decision about whether she will be a “keeper or a dreamer.” I got those two labels from this post at Rabbit Room by Sarah Clarkson. As I commented there, I think all of us have some of the dreamer and some of the keeper inside us. The key is deciding when it’s time to “take off” and when it’s time to hold fast and make a nest and a community. Taking Off by Jenny Moss offers both a good story and some wisdom about choosing between the two modes of living intentionally.