Space Monster

Author: David Ross

First line: Gorp was a lonely creature who lived in the empty blackness of space.

Why you should read this book: What might otherwise be categorized as an advanced early reader transcends the limitations of its genre to deliver a powerful message about loneliness, intelligence, and the thirst for knowledge. The brilliant and curious Brainos are on a constant quest for understanding, usually resulting in the dissection and subsequent destruction of the things they want to understand, while Gorp, a gentle planet-eating space monster, is simply too huge and powerful to be captured by their equipment or harmed by their projectiles, which he typically eats without realizing their significance. Eventually, one Braino named Twarp comes to grasp that he is dealing with an intelligent and undefeatable force, and finds a way to communicate friendship, resulting in a beneficial arrangement for both species.

Why you shouldn’t read this book: You’d give anything to see a real alien autopsy, and you figure if you can’t get inside of things, you might as well blow them off the map.