The Secrets of Star Whales — Rebecca Thorne

On the small space station Azura, Maxion Belmont is constantly torn between his two passionsengineering and music. Both are hobbies handed down from his father, bittersweet since his death two years ago. While his hydrodriver is great for repairing starship parts, his fathers old string instrument tugs at the latent grief Max hides from his mom and classmates with each chord Max strums. When a foreign starship appears on the horizon, Azura welcomes their first tourist in years. Enter, Mr. Hames, starship captain and space-brained traveler. But theres something weird about the stranger-turned-substitute teacher. He has no idea how to teach and thinks enlisting a group of twelve-year-olds to become his starship crew is totally normal. Or maybe its the fact he keeps raving about the existence of alien whales in the vacuum of space: star whales. As Max and the rest of Mr. Hamess class/crew uncover the mysteries of the star whales, they discover they arent the only ones looking for the elusive creaturesand not every whaler has good intentions. Confronted with questions about his own fathers history with the star whales, Max must decide how far hell go to understand not only his father, but also the boy hes become since his death . . . even at the expense of the star whales themselves.