Cosmic, by Frank Cottrell Boyce

I think I've mentioned it before, but if you like boys or dads, you've got to read this book. The author is British and my almost 12YO is American, but it sounds like Boyce followed my son all over and just wrote down what he said. All of the fixation on computer games and doing cool stuff in real life without carrying the heavy sense of adult responsibility, and getting into trouble because of it, but having this deep, mature thoughts all mixed up in the cool! Antigravity ride! ooh, shininess of being a kid. My boys read it and I read it and now I'm reading it aloud to my girls, but I have to keep stopping because I'm laughing too much. The story: Liam's tall for his twelve-almost-thirteen years, and between that and the brillo pad growing on his chin, people often mistake him for an adult. Which means adults leave him alone, especially when it looks like he's taking his daughter out for dad-daughter time. (The "daughter" is his same-age neighbor, Florida Kirby, who actually does need a dad around.) They even hoodwink a Porsche salesman... So when he wins a dad-child trip to a secret space station in China (said to be a theme park--but with a real space ship ride), he doesn't bring his dad. He brings Florida as his daughter. And from there, things go very well--or very badly, depending on how you look at it--and they are stranded in space. It's a great book about being a dad and being a kid. And it's funny. Read it today!