Galena's Gift

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

In this sequel to The Golden Grasshopper, Gagar, a friendly alien from
the planet Ylepithon, returns to Earth with his adolescent daughter,
Galena, whom he wants 12-year-old Lisa to baby-sit. Maybe it is never a
good time to take charge of a doll-sized superintelligent being with the
face of a frog and the temperament of a spoiled brat, but Lisa is not
having a good year herself. Her mother has remarried and, no matter how
nice he is, Lisa is having a hard time sharing her mother’s affection
with her stepfather.

Lisa is also not having a good year at school. Her first boyfriend, a
young hunk named Michael, has just dumped her but will not tell her why,
and a loser nicknamed “Worm-face” always seems to be underfoot.
Against her better judgment Lisa agrees to baby-sit Galena, but soon
finds out that she has taken on more than she bargained for.

As she did in the first book, Nelson uses a humorous main plot as a
flywheel to simultaneously turn a host of subplots in her story. She
also discusses issues that are familiar to preteens (e.g., Lisa is
considered too old for one thing but too young for another). By agreeing
to baby-sit Galena, Lisa moves up a notch toward becoming a responsible
adult. She also learns something about love, sharing, friendship,
loyalty, and alpaca farming. Recommended.