Topic: Science

Kaya, raised in the undersea, high-tech world of Atlantis, has always been fascinated by the legends about life above the water. Despite the government’s insistence that they’re only stories, she can’t help but dream about the Sun People—and when a group of officials known as Erasers move to bury those legends for good, Kaya sets out to the surface to uncover the truth once and for all.

In the world above, where climate change has led to giant tsunamis that threaten Earth’s coasts, all Lewis wants is to spend more time with his scientist father. When he stows away on his dad’s top-secret research trip, he finds himself thrown headfirst into an adventure much bigger than he bargained for. 

Told from alternating perspectives, The Accidental Invasion takes readers on an action-packed adventure under the sea. Kaya introduces readers to her world—Atlantis—where people have evolved and thrived. Despite Atlantis’s advanced technology, the large population is threatened by the pollution caused by the People of the Sun. However, only a select few know that the People of the Sun aren’t just fables. When Kaya meets real Sun People—Hanna, Lewis, and his father—she is determined to keep them safe. Kaya’s determination, courage, and curiosity make her a likable character whom readers will root for.  

When Lewis narrates the story, his voice is unique and readers will have no difficulty distinguishing his narration from Kaya’s. Lewis’s voice adds humor to an otherwise serious book. For example, when Lewis sees Kaya and Naxos for the first time, he wonders, “Should he run? Call for help? Hide under the fold-down kitchen table? Do the Chicken dance? No. Too much pressure. Instead, he shrugged and waved.” While Lewis makes light of many situations, readers will understand his desire to return to his family above the ocean surface. 

The Accidental Invasion gives clear examples of the harm that people have caused the oceans. “You Sun People are poisoning the oceans with your plastics and chemicals. Soon, the oceans will be so ruined that [Atlanteans] won’t be able to feed ourselves. . . We fear the oceans may need decades to recover.” This idea is reinforced when Kaya, Lewis, and Hanna fly over the surface of the ocean. “The ship flew over huge islands of garbage and plastic that stretched for miles.” It is then that Lewis and Hanna realize that the People of the Sun “really were poisoning the seas.”

While the story explains many of the technological advancements of Atlantis, the end of the book also describes the science behind the book as well as the effects of using plastics. In addition, the author encourages kids to take action: “Don’t wait for your parents to make a difference. . . There’s nothing stopping you from putting down TikTok or Instagram, becoming informed, and turning yourself into an ocean ambassador.”  

The Accidental Invasion has interesting and well-developed characters, but it also has wonderful descriptions of Atlantis. The world-building is detailed and inventive while also showing that even in Atlantis, nothing is perfect. The storyline is action-packed and suspenseful while also teaching readers about human’s destructive ocean pollution. The Accidental Invasion is an entreating and thought-provoking book that will have readers eager to read the second book in the series, The Brink of War. 

Sexual Content  

• None 

Violence  

• Kaya travels to Edgeland, which is known as “a magnet for criminals.” While there, a man wants to steal Kaya’s gravity suit. “A thick-lipped man had both hands clamped around her ankle now. Whistling, Kaya dialed up the power in the drive and kicked at his hairy knuckles. . . Desperately, Kaya stomped on the man’s face. He grabbed his eye and loosened his grip just long enough for her to plant her foot on his head and push off. . .” Kaya soars away from the man. 
• Lewis, his father, and Hanna find Atlantis. Once they are close, their subsphere [an underwater submarine] is blasted with a sonic sound that knocks them out. An Atlantean man carries the three unconscious people out of the subsphere. When the man realizes that the “Sun People” are not invaders, he helps them escape.   
• The Atlanteans have created a sonic blaster, a nonlethal weapon, which is used often in the story. For example, while trying to get the Sun People to safety, Kaya has to get past two workers. “Kaya pulled out her sonic blaster. . . her hands were shaking. The two dockmasters could see she was nervous, too. They stomped forward. . . Her finger pulled the trigger, and they dropped into crumpled heaps on the stone floor.”  
• When the Erasers find Kaya, they try to capture the Sun People. While trying to escape, “A group of men and women holding deadly trumpets and frightening flutes raced out. . . Lewis watched the muscles in his fingers tense as he aimed his trumpet at their cruiser. The Eraser squeezed the trigger. . . Then his dad fell forward, and Kaya pushed the throttle, rocketing the ship into the darkness.” Lewis’s dad is put in jail. 
• Naxos, an Eraser who helped the Sun People escape, appears at Kaya’s apartment. It is implied that Naxos was beaten in order to get him to talk. “Naxos’s face was bruised. A cut was swelling over his left eye. . . A thin stream of blood trickled out of the cut above his eye.” When Kaya sees Naxos, she points a sonic blaster at him, but Kaya’s grandmother scolds her and says, “You do not point weapons at people!” 
• Atlantis has been creating tsunamis because the Sun People “continue to poison and pollute the oceans.” An Atlantean man, Demos, explains that he doesn’t feel bad that “waves ruined homes, towns, entire cities” because “we’re doing it to protect the hundred million people here in Atlantis.” 
• The Atlanteans do not want people to know they exist. Demos says, “Have you studied the history of your civilization, child? When new lands and peoples are discovered, they are conquered, slaughtered and destroyed.”  
• Kaya, Naxos, and the kids are trying to escape from the Atlanteans who want to imprison them. “Naxos tackled Kaya to the ground, then pulled her behind a desk. . . A pulse rushed through Kaya, a vibration that rang in her bones. She was shaken but awake.” 
• To communicate with the Sun People, Atlantis sent a group to the surface. However, the Sun People assumed the vessel was a missile. Kaya explains, “My mother was killed on a peaceful mission to the surface when her ship was destroyed by the People of the Sun.”  
• In a multi-chapter chase, the Atlanteans give Hanna and Lewis a ship to go to the surface. However, it is a trick because the Atlanteans plan to destroy the ship. Kaya realizes this and swims to the ship. The Atlanteans shoot a missile and it “exploded, sending waves pulsing through the water in all directions. Their warship flipped upside down and then turned over on its side.” 
• Another missile is fired. “The explosion shook the ship before Lewis could strap himself down. The whole vehicle pulsed as he flew backward. . . His ribs felt busted. The bones in his hands felt like they’d splintered. It hurt to breathe.”  
• Kaya flies the ship near a dome that contains a massive fleet of ships. When the warships fire, “Lewis turned to try to see the scene below them. The water was roiling. . . Lewis saw three vehicles lying around the base. Or what was left of them, anyway. The ships were shattered. Even the metal hulls were busted into pieces.” 
• During the battle, enough torpedoes hit the dome that “the weight of four miles of seawater drove the glass, the inner walls, and the thousands of ships below into the depths of what had been the actor’s lower floors. . . Waves rocked their ship; Lewis gripped his seat as they were flipped over at least three times.” Kaya, Lewis, and Hanna escape to the surface. 

Drugs and Alcohol  

• While walking through Edgeland, Kaya sees two men singing and she guesses that the men are “deep into their drink.” Atlanteans make a drink from fermented kelp.  
• In Atlantis, people are imprisoned in glass cells surrounded by deadly toxins. In order to free Lewis and Hanna, Lewis’s father “swam out of the cell to save us.” Naxos flees with Lewis’s father in the hopes of getting him to a doctor. 

Language  

• Hanna tells Lewis that he and his father are emotional idiots.  
• Hanna calls Lewis an imbecile once. Later, an Atlantean calls the Sun People imbeciles. 
• Kaya explains that “Edgeland is [full of] mostly scoundrels and rogues.”  
• An Atlantean refers to Lewis and Hanna as “things.” Lewis thinks, “No one had ever called him a thing. He’d been called a bug, a donkey, a mother-less goat. . . Someone had called him a walking wedgie once, too. . . But he’d never been referred to as a thing.” 

Supernatural 

• None 

Spiritual Content  

• Lewis lies to the Atlanteans saying he is going to send a transmission to the surface. Afterward, Lewis prays. “Normally, Lewis didn’t pray all that much. . . But now Lewis began to pray. Not to any particular god or goddess or ancient spirit. He was begging all of them. The Big Guy, with the beard and the robes and the throne on the clouds, the Greek and Roman gods, the cool Hindu ones, including that really smart elephant—even the Aztec spirit with the hard-to-say name, the one that sort of rhymed with pretzel. He pleaded with any and all mystical beings for help.”  
• When the Atlanteans give in to Lewis’ demands, he thinks, “The pretzel god had listened. Or the elephant, or one of the Greeks.”