Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction

Nova's Ark

By David Kirk

Nova’s Ark is a really cute science fiction book with fabulous pictures. Nova is a young robot with a love for exploration, much like his father. He has a metal dog named Sparkey and lives on a plant called Roton. He lives with his mom and his dad, however, his dad is gone a lot be cause he is a famous explorer. Nova dreams at night about being with his dad and having the opportunity to explore space as well. He has a workbench and likes to work with different robotic materials to build things. His most precious possession is his set of wooden animals which represent Noah’s Arc. The wooden animals have been passed down for several years and were “carved by men before robots ever existed.” One day Nova’s class took a fieldtrip to Axon, the space museum. He was overjoyed when he saw the “Glax Cruiser,” a real spaceship. He went in and sat on the launch pad. Overcome with excitement while staring into the red luminous light he pulled the lever and the spaceship took off! For months Nova was lost and alone drifting among the stars, trying to make it home. Not long after he landed on the rocks of a desolate moon. Because his spaceship would never fly again he decided to use the different parts to build animals. Nova built a giraffe, a penguin, an iguana, a mule, a lion, a deer, a hedgehog, and a cat just to name a few. Lastly, he constructed an elephant and named him Trumpet. One night while Nova was sleeping a spaceship fell on the moon where Nova had been living. The spaceship door opened, it was his dad! In order to power up Trumpet, the spaceship Nova made, to get home, Nova’s dad showed him the “Zyte crystals” and how they provide fuel for the spaceship. Nova and his dad returned home and his mother was thrilled! From then on his father promised to always take both Nova and his mother on future explorations. This would be a fun book to incorporate technology in the classroom by the students creating a Wordle. I think it would be fun for students to think of the fun, silly, important, and meaningful words in the story and incorporate them all together to make really fun Wordle! Once they have completed their Wordles they can share them with the class and explain why they chose the words they did.