The Long Listen

Some messages take a lifetime to arrive. This one took fifty years. Eleven-year-old Maya has spent her whole life waiting for things that are far away. Her mom is on a research ship, at the bottom of the world. Her dad is a question nobody answers, leaving behind only an old cipher wheel and a note about an umbrella. So when Maya moves in with her grandfather Elias, a retired linguist who talks to the stars more than he talks to people, she expects a quiet, lonely year. Then Farlight wakes up. Elias was twenty-five when he helped launch Farlight, a small probe sent into the dark to listen for anyone out there. For decades it sent back nothing but static. Now it's sending a pattern. It isn't noise, and it isn't a mistake. It's something that might be a language. With Beacon, the station's curious and kind AI, Maya and her grandfather start working through the signal one sound at a time. Her friends Jules, Theo and Ren join in, and so do the sharp-eyed Ms. Okonkwo and the careful Dr. Shah. Soon they all have to answer questions bigger than any of them. What does it mean to really listen? How do you talk to someone who thinks in a completely different way? And what do you say back, when your answer won't arrive for years? As the messages get stranger and more beautiful, Maya realizes the puzzle isn't only in the sky. It's in her grandfather's old notebooks, in her father's cipher wheel, and in the long silences of her own family. Cracking Farlight might mean learning to hear the people closest to her, too. The Long Listen is a warm, wonder-filled middle-grade science fiction novel about codes and courage, grandparents and grandkids, and humans and AI working side by side. It's perfect for readers who loved A Wrinkle in Time, The Wild Robot and When You Reach Me, and for anyone who has ever looked up at the night sky and wondered whether someone was looking back. For readers ages 8 to 12, and anyone who still believes the universe is worth listening to. Scroll up and start listening today.