Friends Lance, Chet, Maksym, and Katja have arrived at Crater Lake with all their year six classmates on a school vacation. As they get to the site a man covered in blood runs in front of their coach requiring medical attention.

Things take an even stranger turn when night falls as the students who have fallen asleep have become bug-eyed and brainwashed and are heading into the woods as workers for some aliens, including their teachers. Those who haven’t fallen asleep yet are still very much human.

Can Lance and his friends work out what is happening, stop the weird alien invasion, help their classmates, and remain awake for the next two days until the coach comes back to pick them up?

Crater Lake is an exciting sci-fi, mildly scary children’s book. From the beginning, the reader is told that when the pupils fall asleep they turn into bug-eyed victims of some alien race that is in Crater Lake.

The plot is full-on and the friends’ bravery and camaraderie really shows, even if there are a few tiffs along their journey. There is a lot of humour too which will give the reader a giggle now and again.

This is an amazing middle-grade novel that will have children glued to the pages wanting to follow all the action and find out how Lance and his friends can get the situation under control. Reminded me a little of the movie Toy Soldiers, where a group of kids has to save the rest of the pupils from the baddies – though they are saving them from aliens not terrorists in this book.

Jennifer Killick is the author of the hilarious Alex Sparrow series, and middle-grade sci-fi adventure Mo, Lottie and the Junkers. She regularly visits schools and festivals, and her books have three times been selected for The Reading Agency’s Summer Reading Challenge.

Jennifer’s writing career really started when she applied for a Creative Writing MA at Brunel University, which is where she first got the idea for `Alex Sparrow and the Really Big Stink.’ She lives in Uxbridge, in a house full of children, animals and Lego. When she isn’t busy mothering or step-mothering (which isn’t often) she loves to read, write and run, as fast as she can.