What's the name of this kids' scifi anthology I remember?

June 18, 2014 11:39 AM

I read this book of short stories years ago, and for some reason I remember most of the stories in it but have had no luck with Googling for it. Must be that the stories' premises were creative enough or caught my imagination in a particular way. The most memorable story was about trying to survive on Earth after a supernova. I'm pretty sure these are all from the same book:

• The sun goes supernova and the protagonist (a teenage girl) and her family are on the night side of the Earth when it happens. They race to the airport to be one of the few lucky people to board a plane, which races the line of sunrise (emphasis is placed on the phrase "the terminator") to stay on the shaded side of the planet. Their plan is to fly to the North Pole, where it will stay dark for 6 months, then fly to the other pole for the other season. I remember immediately pegging this as ridiculous.
• A boy gets his luggage mixed up at the airport, and takes home a suitcase which was abandoned on the baggage carousel. The clothes inside fit him well, except for an extra sleeve in the middle of the back. After a few days of wearing the new clothes, he's surprised to find he has grown an extra arm...
• Kid is teleported and time-shifted to the precambrian, and prevents a fellow time-traveler from blowing up the Burgess Shale (or causes him to?) When he returns to the present, everything is exactly the same except that everyone is now a sentient arthropod.
• Possibly a story about a window in someone's room that opened up onto an alternate universe with different weather (for example, there would be a thunderstorm outside this window, but it'd otherwise be sunny out). I think this was the basis for the cover art on the book, a large door or window with a rainstorm or other atmospheric graphics around it.
I believe this was published in the '90s and written for 10-13 year olds. That's when I would have read it. I don't think there were more than about 4 stories in the book, and the title was probably something along the lines of... well, now any title sounds equally generic and plausible, so I won't even hazard a guess.

posted by lostburner to Writing & Language (7 answers total)

Best answer: Neal Shusterman's Mindstorms!
posted by Nedroid at 12:31 PM on June 18, 2014 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: You win the Internet! Thanks, that's exactly the book!

That animation... sublime.
posted by lostburner at 1:48 PM on June 18, 2014

Response by poster: Another book that just came to mind, might as well tack it onto this thread in case similar readers check in. A kid wishes for his parents to buy an android for him to pal around with as a sibling/friend. They break down and buy him one, a realistic just-like-a-13-year-old-boy android. Part of the deal is that since he has a built-in radio for communicating back to android central (or wherever), the businessman dad makes the purchase pay by having the android ride along in the car some of the time to act as a car phone. For some reason I think the android kid had a name like Danny. Ring a bell?
posted by lostburner at 2:28 PM on June 18, 2014

lostburner, did the android have straight (kneeless) legs and at one point the boy pretends to be the android by running as if his legs didn't bend? I remember a kids SF short story collection with that story but I don't know what it was called.
posted by rustcellar at 2:39 PM on June 18, 2014

Response by poster: The straight legs sounds very familiar. If it wasn't the same book/story, then I've read the one you're talking about.
posted by lostburner at 2:49 PM on June 18, 2014

Best answer: How about My Robot Buddy?
posted by aimedwander at 6:33 AM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Wow, the hive mind strikes again! The name of the robot was Danny One. I can't believe I remembered that detail after so long; can't believe someone came by and remembered My Robot Buddy. Thanks, aimedwander.
posted by lostburner at 11:16 AM on June 24, 2014