Lightning Bugs and Aliens is the kind of book that takes you back to a specific temperature — the particular warmth of summer evenings when you were young and the night felt full of possibility and danger in equal measure.
Babka’s five thirteen-year-olds in 1960 Ohio are hunting aliens in a summer shaped by science fiction movies, Cold War paranoia, and an unexplained explosion. But underneath the adventure are harder questions about friendship, race, and what it costs to grow up honestly in a complicated world.
The kind of read you enjoy over multiple lazy summer afternoons. Warm, specific, genuinely moving.
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