The Jamie Drake Equation

Product Information

While his dad is in space, Jamie, his younger sister and his artist mother are living with his ex-rocker grandfather. I wish I had this book to explain some of the grittier details of astronomy to me when I was a freshman in college. He plugs his phone into her laptop and downloads a mysterious app that may or may not be of alien origin.

Realistic for a book which is a first person narrative of a ten year old, perhaps, but a limitation when it comes to modelling good writing and broadening children's exposure to high quality language.

An adorable middle-grade story about Jamie Drake, whose Dad is a famous astronaut on a space mission, which would be great if he didn’t miss him so much. stars for being a quick and enjoyable read, for having legit tension with the space walk, and for the doctor who references 😂 my ratings are ridiculous, but I think this is an exceptional middle grade scifi book with a lot of roots in reality but with tons of imaginative bits, kind of like the scifi version of magical realism? As someone who has never been particularly interested in science fiction, this book may have pulled me over to the other side. This book would be perfect for children who are in KS2, and would work well alongside a topic on space or in relation to PSHE work. I'm not used to my son demanding "just one more chapter" and, as we got to the last five, there was no way we were going to wait any more nights to find out how it ended.

After the amazing The Many Worlds of Albie Bright, Christopher Edge would easily be forgiven for a less ambitious follow-up.

Yesterday a parent came over to tell me how impressed she was by the book fair and that you did a fabulous job of selling the books to the children first.

As a Year 5/6 teacher, I used this book in conjunction with our Space topic, and the children loved it. The story moves along at a good pace keeping the reader engaged and eager to find out what happens next. Christopher Edge grew up in Manchester where he spent most of his childhood in the local library dreaming up stories, but now lives in Gloucestershire where he spends most of his time in the local library dreaming up stories.Jamie’s fight for his dad is heartwarming; the pride he has for his family, combined with the way he helps his sister both brought tears to my eyes when reading. The hope is that these will be found by any intelligent life out there and a response will be sent back to Earth.

Whilst there is a steady growth of non-fiction books about women in STEM who have made an impact in society, fiction books with them are still few and far between. From the opening chapters wherein Jamie is threatened by maths equation homework, to unconventional interludes with Minty, a surprise encounter with Dr Foster and the dazzling, stars-in-the eyes conclusion, this book is meteor mighty. Things take a strange turn as he visits an old observatory and accidentally picks up a strange signal on his phone.This science fiction book features scientific and mathematical concepts, including an explanation of the Fibonacci Sequence and Fibonacci Spiral. The science is difficult stuff but Edge manages to present it in a way that doesn't become off-putting or too high-brow. I used to think that Dad was the star of our family’s solar system, but now I know that the light shines in all of us. It was also shortlisted for the North Somerset Teacher’s Book Award 2017 and nominated for the Bolton Children’s Fiction Award 2018. Jamie is a typical boy with a dad with a not-so-typical job, but with a family with who face the struggles that many families face.