See You in the Cosmos facts for kids
First edition cover
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| Author | Jack Cheng |
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| Translators |
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| Cover artist | Jason Henry |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Bildungsroman, juvenile |
| Set in | United States |
| Publisher | Dial Books (US) Puffin Books (UK) |
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Publication date
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February 18, 2017 |
| Media type | Paperback, hardback, Audio CD, e-book |
| Pages | 320 |
| ISBN | 978-0-399-18638-7 (paperback) |
| OCLC | 1077591862 |
| 813.6 | |
See You in the Cosmos is a 2017 epistolary Bildungsroman novel by Chinese-American author Jack Cheng. It is his first juvenile book and his second book. Written in the style of a transcription, it follows astronomy-loving pre-teen Alex Petroski as he embarks on a journey to understand the life of his late father, whilst recording sounds on his iPod to launch it to space for extraterrestrial beings.
Cheng composed the initial idea for the novel in 2012, after seeing a photo of the Pale Blue Dot, intertwined with remembrance of an episode of Radiolab. He was also inspired by a road trip he took in 2013.
The novel received a generally positive reception upon its release, as well as several accolades. Many reviewers praised the style of narrative, as well as Alex's character, regarded to be memorable and resonating, although the epistolary style is noted to have some consequences. The audiobook version of the novel was saluted for its naturalness and faithfulness to the written version.
Contents
Background
Jack (born Yuan) Cheng was born in Shanghai, China, in around 1984, and immigrated to Troy, Michigan, when he was five, with his younger brother. After a failed attempt to enter the University of Michigan Business School, he attended classes about communications, and went to New York City in 1998 for an advertising internship. He also became a copywriter there. Feeling that he "was losing this artistic, entrepreneurial drive", he moved to the freelance industry in late 2008.
In 2013, after releasing his debut novel These Days, a romance novel based on Cheng's experience as a Midwestern tech worker based in New York, with funds from Kickstarter, he started writing See You in the Cosmos. He got the idea for the novel in 2012 at his parents' house during a Thanksgiving gathering. His brother's room had Pale Blue Dot, a 1990 photograph of Earth from 6 billion kilometers away taken by Voyager 1, on his shelf. Seeing the photograph reminded him of an episode of Radiolab about the photograph. The next day, he instantly had the idea of the novel in his head and worked on it immediately. He also cited "ambient sound" as one of the bases of the story. Cheng recalled via WUOM that part of the novel was based on a road trip he took in the Southwestern United States in mid-2013, where he mimicked his late father who once took a Greyhound Lines service from Los Angeles to Detroit, wanting to know the full story of his family "and how I came to be where I am".
As the novel included elements detailing social work and child protective services, Cheng stated in the novel's acknowledgment section that he researched the topic with the help of several friends. He also credited various people for "guiding me through unfamiliar territory, and for helping peel open the layers to find what the book was really about".
Although he is an Asian-American, Cheng did not create the novel on the basis of Asian-American representation. He said: "I think we’re still at the beginning where in America the stories written by Asian Americans form only a tiny part of their experience [of growing up in America]. There are other experiences where our 'Asian-ness' doesn't necessarily have a significant role in the story, and See You in the Cosmos is one example". He hoped that minority writers dilute their idea scope to a wider range than just their ethnicity.
Throughout the writing process, Cheng did not have any insights on what the novel's target demographic would be, saying that "It was more the story seemed interesting and the character happened to be eleven". After submitting the manuscript to his literary agent, Barcelonan Jessica Craig, she told Cheng that this should be submitted as a young adult novel, and copyedited it to make it more friendly towards the 10–14 age range. Quantitatively, not many further edits were done; however, there are still some: Cheng thought of the manuscript as a "lucid dream", where after witnessing it he then "go back and make sense of it". Cheng compared the novel, having been a juvenile book but with adult themes, with works like The Little Prince and Spirited Away, which "have these qualities of meaning one thing for a kid and then have this depth and complexity for the adult".
Plot
11-year-old European-Filipino-American Alexander Petroski lives in fictional Rockview, Colorado, with his mother. His brother, 24-year old Ronnie, is in Los Angeles to work as a sports agent. Alex also has a puppy, Carl Sagan (taken from the name of his idol astrophysicist). Alex has an iPod spray-painted in gold, on which he has been busy recording various audio to recreate the Voyager Golden Record, and launch his homemade rocket, Voyager 3, at the Southwest High-Altitude Rocket Festival (SHARF).
Alex embarks with Carl Sagan to travel to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the festival is located. Befriended on the train, martial arts master Zed, who after taking a vow of silence only communicates with a chalkboard, brings him to SHARF, where his roommate friend Steve will be launching a rocket, which their roommate Nathan designed. Miserably, Alex's rocket crashed seconds after launch. Luckily, his iPod is not damaged.
Alex receives an Ancestry.com email that his dad, Joseph David Petroski, is located in Las Vegas, Nevada. Having little knowledge of his dad, Alex begs Steve to drive him there; Ronnie permits, and Steve accepts. At Vegas, Carl Sagan goes missing; the search for him prompts Alex to find his dad and ask for help. Alex asks a woman named Terra if Joseph David Petroski is around; it is revealed that Terra is Joseph's daughter, and that she is Alex's half-sister. Terra was born to Joseph and his first wife Donna, and after Joseph's death, Donna moved on to another man, Howard. Alex and Terra got along quickly, mostly due to Alex's ardent attitude.
They go to Los Angeles with Zed and Steve. Steve plans to confess his feelings for Terra (although he has a girlfriend), but seeing Nathan talking with Terra led him to believe that they are in a relationship, and an argument ensues. After punching Nathan, Steve belittles Alex, saying that creating a working rocket requires time, money, and teamwork. Alex passes out, and Terra cuts Steve off from Alex, sadly leaving Zed and Nathan.
Terra brings Alex home. Upon their arrival, Alex's mother is not present. Alex climbs up a ladder to look if his mother is around the house, but he collapses and is hospitalized. When Alex is discharged, everyone but him learns that Alex's mother, Karen, has long suffered from schizophrenia. After days of uncertainty, Ronnie reveals it to Alex. He also reveals that Joseph was an abusive husband, however Karen's disorder camouflaged his malice and considered him a good man. He traveled frequently for work, where he got intimate with Donna and made Terra. Joseph later died in an accident. Painted by her disorder, she grieved: placing Joseph's remains in her room and acting cold-blooded. Still enraged, Ronnie threw the ashes away at a construction site. Viewing it as a cursed town, Ronnie left Rockview and pursued his own life.
Social worker Juanita is tasked to decide whether foster care will be in Alex's best interest, but Ronnie rejects this, saying that he will stay in Rockview with Alex. Alex, Ronnie, and Terra gather and enjoy times together. Alex is invited by space organization CivSpace, which has been hearing about Alex's story, to witness the fictional Cloud 9 rocket carrying a satellite to Mars from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. As the rocket lifts, Alex realizes that through the love and help of others, his dream of lifting Voyager 3 up will come true.
Characters
- Alexander Petroski— a pre-teen boy who lives in the fictional town of Rockview, Colorado. Although he is considered immature in terms of age, he considers his mental age to be around 13, and has a pet peeve of others calling him a kid. Most of his favorite songs are those included in the Voyager Golden Record. Alex considers himself a pacifist. He has a part-time job at a gas station owned by Mr. Bashir, assigned to stack magazines at a stand.
- Carl Sagan— Alex's pet puppy. Alex found him at a parking lot in Safeway; Ronnie initially opposed the idea of a pet as it may impact Alex and Karen financially and routinely, however Alex insisted with his perseverance. Carl Sagan once got lost in the nightlife of Las Vegas, but was found.
- Ronnie "RJ" Petroski— Alex's older brother
- Karen— Alex's mentally-disordered mother
- Joseph David Petroski— Alex's dead father. He was a European-American, whose family arrived from Europe in 1870. He later died in an accident.
- Terra— a 19-year-old female living in Las Vegas. She has a boyfriend named Brandon, but has no romantic feelings for him.
Accolades
| Award | Category | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 Golden Kite Award | Middle Grade Fiction | Won | |
| 2018 Audie Award | Middle Grade | Won | |
| 2018—2019 Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award | Master List | Listed | |
| 2019 Oklahoma Sequoyah Book Awards | Grade 6—8 | Nominated | |
| 2017 VOYA's Top Shelf Fiction for Middle School Readers | 3rd place |
Future
Cheng said that he has no plans to create a sequel, but does not stand firm on it. He also said that he has been negotiating with the film industry for a film adaptation, "but that's still a long ways from it being a movie you can watch". During the COVID-19 pandemic, Cheng posted YouTube videos of him reading chapters from See You in the Cosmos to guide those on remote learning.
Images for kids
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(L - R) Darkened cover art of the French edition published by Bayard Presse; cover art of the audiobook version; cover art of the Spanish Edition (Nos Vemos en el Cosmos) published by Nube de Tinta; cover art of the German Edition (Hallo Leben, hörst du mich?) published by cbj.
