Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1557951 in Books
• Published on: 2006-07-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 222 pages

From School Library Journal
Grade 7-10-As part of a cultural exchange in 2094, nine teens from the planet Chela are sent to Earth to live with host families. Tall Fen, who cloaks himself in the color grey to hide his emotions, arrives to stay with the Wells family. Daria Wells, 16, is a registered zookeeper. Both the Terran and Chelan worlds have experienced disasters, though only the Terrans will discuss their environmental crash when global warming led to massive extinction of animals. To restore their dwindling populations, Earth has begun an intensive rebuilding program of which Daria is a part. It's obvious that Fen loves animals, though no one suspects the lengths to which he will go to help the Chelans restock the creatures his people exterminated through hunting and misuse of resources. The willingness of two dissimilar planets to work together is paralleled by the teens, with secretive Fen, whose coloration changes in a chameleonlike manner depending on his emotion, matched against the practical, industrious, and very fair-skinned Daria. Alien exchange students and environmental protection are two very real possibilities in this futuristic tale that should appeal to both science fiction fans and nature lovers. It will be particularly enjoyed by fans of Annette Curtis Klause's Alien Secrets (Delacorte, 1993) or Scott Russell Sanders's The Engineer of Beasts (Orchard, 1988; o.p.).
Pam Spencer, Young Adult Literature Specialist, Virginia Beach, VA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Gilmore brings new meaning to the concept of foreign-exchange students when she transplants nine teens from the planet Chela to Earth. Fen, a seven-foot alien with a passion for animals and problems controlling his emotion-produced color shifts, lands with a seemingly ideal family. The Wells host a breeding zoo for endangered animals, which is run by their 16-year-old daughter, Daria. But even in 2094, an alien and an earthling have communication problems. Fen is evasive and secretive about the animal life on his planet; Daria is curious. Gilmore makes a farfetched premise seem more reasonable with everyday details of life in the twenty-first century, sympathetic characters, and logical consequences. Add some lessons on ecology, and you've got a story that will appeal to readers on many levels. Candace Smith

From Kirkus Reviews
Budding zoologist Daria lives in 2094, 70 years after an environmental crash; the near-extinction of many species of animals puts her in the enviable position of helping replenish Earth by raising creatures in a home zoo. Her family is cooperative (if not always agreeable) and financially able to help her feed and house llamas, hornbills, and binturongs. When her mother announces that Fen, an exchange student from the planet Chela, will be staying with them, Daria wonders if the tall grey alien will fit in. Fen, however, loves animals to an extraordinary degree, and Daria gains a companion and a sympathetic helper, who is oddly taciturn on the subject of Chelan fauna. Gilmore (Jason and the Bard, 1993) charts this story carefully, crafting the awkward nuances that give rise to culturalor in this case, interplanetarymisunderstandings. Fen is a convincing alien; he's humanoid, but markedly different from Daria, and his propensity for changing color with his emotions leads to an intriguing scene in which he tries to communicate with a chameleon. Underlying the growing friendship and understanding between Earthlings and Chelans is the slowly revealed horror of what has happened on Chelaan environmental disaster as devastating as a nuclear blast. Gilmore shows that Earth might end, not with a bang, but without a bleat, meow, bark, or chirp. (Fiction. 10-14) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

What if you had an alien living with you?
What would you do if you had an exchange student living with you? What if this exchange student was from another planet? Well in this book, Exchange Student, 16-year old Daria has an exchange student live with her. This exchange student is not any normal exchange student, but he is an alien from Chela named Fen. He is about seven feet tall and changes colors with the changes of his emotions. Daria is a breeder of endangered animals and when Fen comes, she finds that he too loves animals.
Kate Gilmore, the author of this book, takes you into the book as she describes the animals, somewhat what the world looks like in about a hundred years or so, and she describes the problems and fun of this alien's visit. She has written this challenging tale with a sharp eye for human, alien, and animal ways.
If you want to learn more about this alien and how the family copes with this new member, you should read this excellent book. I personally didn't want to put the book down. The words may be a little advanced for younger children, but a great challenge and fun for more advanced students.

Great Reading
This is a WONDERFUL book. It is all about an alien that comes to earth and has to learn all about the world. It is a little slow in the beginning but it makes for a very good reading. I would recomenend it to anyone I met.

The Exchange Student
This book was a good book. I liked how they added the aliens to the book but when they were on the way to earth at the beginning of the book it was really boring. But then it got better. They have no animals and when Fen finds out where he is going to be living he is in for a huge suprise. Hope fully they can restore the animals on his home planet. For this book being a Sci Fi it was a good book and it had a lot of neat information in it like how they make the animals....