"Eleven-year-old Alex Petroski, along with his dog, Carl Sagan, makes big discoveries about his family on a road trip and he records it all on a golden iPod he intends to launch into space"-- - (Baker & Taylor)

Aspiring to send his golden iPod into space the way Carl Sagan launched his Golden Record on Voyager, Alex documents a road trip to New Mexico as a record of what life is like on Earth, an endeavor that reveals unknown truths about his late father. - (Baker & Taylor)

Aspiring to send his golden iPod into space the way his hero, Carl Sagan, launched his Golden Record on Voyager, 11-year-old Alex documents a road trip to New Mexico as a record of what life is like on Earth, an endeavor that leads to a greater understanding about his late father. Simultaneous eBook. - (Baker & Taylor)

“I haven't read anything that has moved me this much since Wonder.” —Jennifer Niven, author of All the Bright Places

A space-obsessed boy and his dog, Carl Sagan, take a journey toward family, love, hope, and awe in this funny and moving novel for fans of Counting by 7s, Walk Two Moons, and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
 
11-year-old Alex Petroski loves space and rockets, his mom, his brother, and his dog Carl Sagan—named for his hero, the real-life astronomer. All he wants is to launch his golden iPod into space the way Carl Sagan (the man, not the dog) launched his Golden Record on the Voyager spacecraft in 1977. From Colorado to New Mexico, Las Vegas to L.A., Alex records a journey on his iPod to show other lifeforms what life on earth, his earth, is like. But his destination keeps changing. And the funny, lost, remarkable people he meets along the way can only partially prepare him for the secrets he’ll uncover—from the truth about his long-dead dad to the fact that, for a kid with a troubled mom and a mostly not-around brother, he has way more family than he ever knew.
 
Jack Cheng’s debut is full of joy, optimism, determination, and unbelievable heart. To read the first page is to fall in love with Alex and his view of our big, beautiful, complicated world. To read the last is to know he and his story will stay with you a long, long time.

"Stellar." —Entertainment Weekly
“Life-embracing.” —The Wall Street Journal
"Works beautifully." —The New York Times Book Review
“Irresistible.” —The Chicago Tribune
“The best I've read in a long, long time.” —Holly Goldberg Sloan, author of Counting by 7s
“Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.” —Kirkus, starred review
“A propulsive stream-of-conscious dive.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“A gift—a miracle.” —Paul Griffin, author When Friendship Followed Me Home
“Exuberant.” —Booklist
"Full of the real kind of magic." —Ally Condie, author of Matched 
"Absorbing, irresistible." —Common Sense Media
“Incredible.” —BookRiot
"Full of innocence and unwavering optimism." —SLC
"Inspiring." —Time for Kids
“Powerfully affirms our human capacity for grace and love and understanding.” —Gary D. Schmidt, author of Okay for Now - (Penguin Putnam)

Jack Cheng was born in Shanghai, raised in Michigan, and lived in Brooklyn for a decade before settling in Detroit. See You in the Cosmos is his first novel for kids. - (Penguin Putnam)

Booklist Reviews

Eleven-year-old Alex Petroski is from Rockview, Colorado, U.S.A., Planet Earth. He is recording sounds on his iPod to send into space, just like astronomer Carl Sagan did on his Voyager Golden Records (Alex admires Mr. Sagan so much that he named his dog after him). As he gets ready to attend a rocket festival in Albuquerque, Alex also records an audio journal of his life. Since his mom is not functional and his dad is dead, Alex travels by train solo with his dog. When Ancestry.com alerts him to a man with a name and birth date that match his father's, Alex determines to go to Las Vegas to search for him—and ends up losing canine Carl Sagan. This book's strength is its exuberant and utterly believable first-person narrator: Alex is portrayed as intelligent and naive, irritating and endearing. But it's his earnestness that attracts a motley collection of adults who help when his mom goes missing. Good for both budding astronomers and fans of road trip books. Copyright 2016 Booklist Reviews.

Horn Book Guide Reviews

Eleven-year-old Alex makes audio recordings to send into space to inform intelligent beings about life on Earth. Book-smart Alex is clueless about his mom's troubles, his dead father, and why his older brother never visits. On a road trip from Colorado to Albuquerque to Las Vegas, he realizes that the truth he's been seeking is in the bonds with his family, friends, and beloved dog, Carl Sagan. Copyright 2017 Horn Book Guide Reviews.

Kirkus Reviews

If you made a recording to be heard by the aliens who found the iPod, what would you record?For 11-year-old Alex Petroski, it's easy. He records everything. He records the story of how he travels to New Mexico to a rocket festival with his dog, Carl Sagan, and his rocket. He records finding out that a man with the same name and birthday as his dead father has an address in Las Vegas. He records eating at Johnny Rockets for the first time with his new friends, who are giving him a ride to find his dead father (who might not be dead!), and losing Carl Sagan in the wilds of Las Vegas, and discovering he has a half sister. He even records his own awful accident. Cheng delivers a sweet, soulful debut novel with a brilliant, refreshing structure. His characters manage to come alive through the "transcript" of Alex's iPod recording, an odd medium that sounds like it would be confusing but really works. Taking inspiration from the Voyager Golden Record released to space in 1977, Alex, who explains he has "light brown skin," records all the important moments of a journey that takes him from a family of two to a family of plenty. Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious. (Fiction. 10-14) Copyright Kirkus 2016 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly Reviews

Alex Petroski, the idiosyncratic 11-year-old narrator of Cheng's poignant and funny first novel, dutifully records his thoughts and adventures into an iPod, "so when intelligent beings millions of light-years away find it one day they'll know what Earth was like." The result is a propulsive stream-of-conscious dive into Alex's life as he sets off alone from Colorado with his dog, Carl Sagan (named after Alex's personal hero), to launch the iPod into space at the Southwest High-Altitude Rocket Festival in New Mexico. There, he encounters an eclectic cast of rocket enthusiasts and persuades two new adult friends, one of whom has taken a vow of silence, to take him to Las Vegas to track down his supposedly dead father. The trip continues as Alex meets his half-sister, resolves the mystery about his father, and travels on to Los Angeles to find his older brother. Details about his mother and her "quiet days," mentioned throughout, take on increasing importance, especially once Alex returns home. Alex's strong voice drives this compelling personal journey with resonant themes of family, friendship, and resilience. Ages 10–up. (Feb.) Copyright 2016 Publisher Weekly.

School Library Journal Reviews

Gr 4–6—Using only transcripts of podcast recordings to tell a story might be limiting for most narratives, but here it allows 11-year-old Alex Petroski's naïveté and essentially optimistic and ethical nature to come shining through as he tells of his road trip with his dog, Carl Sagan. The decision to travel to SHARF (Southwest High Altitude Rocket Festival), near Albuquerque, NM, is as matter-of-fact as his choice to address his posts to possible extraterrestrials, who he hopes will find his iPod and figure out how things work on Earth. Alex's mother is clearly less than competent, and his distant brother, Ronnie, lives in Los Angeles, which allows Alex to pursue his intense interest in space and rockets unsupervised. Things go awry from the start, but various helpful characters come to his rescue, enabling Alex to continue his journey away from Rockview, CO, and eventually return to the town. He's an intelligent, likable kid, and readers will enjoy following his journey as he learns who is in his corner when the chips are down. It is eventually revealed that his mother has a mental illness, which shines light on the workings of their relationships and explains how Alex has come to be so self-sufficient. VERDICT A smart read with some serious themes. Give to tweens who love unusual realistic fiction.—Carol A. Edwards, formerly at Denver Public Library