Review: Tesla's Attic

The Accelerati Trilogy Book One: Tesla's Attic

By Neal Shusterman and Eric Elfman

Disney-Hyperion Books

(Review copy accessed through NetGalley)
On Shelves: February 2014

A wind up toy that finishes your sentence with advice. A voice recorder that captures what you really think, not what you actually say. A camera that takes an image 24 hours into the future. A baseball glove that not only attracts fly balls but passing asteroids. Nick Slate has just moved with his dad and brother to Colorado Springs after losing his mother in a tragic fire. In his great-aunt's attic he's found what appeared to be old junk that might net him enough money to keep his family fed for the next week. It's at the garage sale that Nick gets the feeling these object may not be junk he thought. After improbably befriending the most popular girl, becoming the object of affection of the most obnoxious, gaining the trust of weirdest, and finding compassion for the neediest; this unlikely group finds themselves the target of a secret and dangerous organization of inventors. Unbeknownst to anybody, one of those mysterious objects from the attic has shifted the course of a world killing asteroid, setting it on a collision course for Colorado. What's worse, one of them has used the future filming camera to foresee that the end is in fact destined. 

This is one of the rare books that doesn't sacrifice character development while remaining fast-paced and plot driven. While Tesla's Attic felt solidly middle school to me, I wouldn't be surprised to see it as a hit for my 5th graders, especially with reluctant readers. It's in the opening few chapters that makes or breaks whether I think a book's going to work for that population and Tesla's Attic succeeds on this level for a number of reasons. The back story about Nick's guilt over the fire that took his mother is utterly compelling. The seemingly magical nature of the items inspires wonder. The characters are tremendously relatable. The Accelerati provide the perfect creepy/mysterious backdrop for what ended up to be a page-turning mystery from start to finish. I've always been a fan of Shusterman's work, but the writing in this story was pitch perfect at every turn. Keeping a strongly realistic fiction tone throughout the majority of the book, before peppering in the cosmic overtones of the celestial happenings heightened anticipation. If the reader had been made aware of the more grandiose plan from the beginning, some of the excitement may have been lost later in the story. This is just an exceptionally plotted book that arrives at a chapter with an intensity I haven’t felt since When You Reach Me. The only question that developed was, how would such a complete feeling story end up in a trilogy? A question that the final chapter rectified brilliantly. Looking forward to putting this one into the hands of many, many students!