We’re Not From Here by Geoff Rodkey, author of The Chronicles of Egg trilogy, including Blue Sea Burning and Deadweather and Sunrise.

Earth is no longer inhabitable. The situation on the Mars Station is precarious and near-disaster. So some of the Mars refugees decide to take a chance on the planet Choom, where four species of intelligent beings live and have invited the desperate humans to come. The only issue is that the decision is irrevocable; if living on Choom doesn’t work out, the humans have nowhere else to go and no more fuel to get there. So even though the Zhuri, the most numerous of the species on Choom, look like giant mosquitoes, the plan is to assume the best about their intentions and the ability of humankind to assimilate and live on Choom.

However, when the humans arrive in Choom orbit, there are more problems. The government has changed, and the Zhuri don’t want to humans to land or to stay or even to talk to them. Can Lan (our narrator) and his mom and dad and his older sister Ila, as The First Human Family to Go to Choom, convince the Zhuri and the other Choom inhabitants to accept them?

Author Geoff Rodkey manages to treat a serious subject—apocalypse and the possible extinction of the human race, not to mention unwanted refugees—with humor and grace and practical sense. The humans really do have no other choice than to stay and live on Choom, and the alien species on Choom really do have valid concerns. Inter-species understanding is complicated and difficult. And Ila’s music and Lan’s comedy might save the day or might make everything much, much worse.

I can see how this book could create a lot of good discussion about refugees, about emotions and their expression, and about communication through the arts, particularly song dance, and comedy. Geoff Rodkey has written a winning science fiction story with an engaging and believable middle grade narrator. The tale does include some violence, not gratuitous, and some rather dangerous and suspenseful moments, so I’d suggest it for maybe age ten and up.