George and the Blue Moon

George and the Blue Moon, published in September 2016, is the fifth book in the George’s Secret Key to the Universe series begun by Lucy Hawking and Stephen Hawking in 2007. George Greenby and his best friend Annie have appeared in four previous adventures involving black holes, the Big Bang, robots on Mars, and quantum computers. This installment finds them preparing for something unprecedented: an actual crewed mission to Mars, sponsored by a mysterious organization called TAEUS, that has invited twelve young candidates to compete for spots as junior crew members. The book is aimed at readers between eight and twelve, but the science it covers is genuinely sophisticated, and adults who pick it up alongside a young reader will find it engaging in its own right.

Lucy Hawking writes the fiction; Stephen Hawking contributed the science sections and essays interspersed throughout the narrative. The arrangement works well. The story moves at a pace appropriate for younger readers, with short chapters and plenty of dialogue, while the science pages slow things down just enough to let the concepts land before the plot moves on. By the time George and Annie board their flight to the TAEUS training center in the desert, you have a working understanding of what Mars actually looks like, why getting there is so difficult, and what the Martian atmosphere would do to an unprotected human body. The science is presented accurately and without condescension.

The plot centers on the TAEUS selection process, which quickly turns sinister. The twelve candidates are put through a series of increasingly strange and dangerous tests. Strange adults appear and disappear. A previous TAEUS class has gone missing. George and Annie are not simply competing for a seat on a rocket; they are trying to figure out what TAEUS actually wants and whether the people running it can be trusted. The mystery structure works well for this age group. There are real stakes, genuine uncertainty about who is trustworthy, and a climax involving a simulated Mars mission that goes terribly wrong in ways the children must solve themselves.

Character Arcs and Development

George has grown considerably across five books. In the early volumes he was primarily a curious child learning about physics; here he is more confident, more decisive, and more willing to challenge adults when something seems wrong. His friendship with Annie has deepened into something that functions under real pressure. When they disagree in this book, which they do, the disagreement comes from a genuine difference in how they read people and situations rather than from the kind of manufactured conflict common in middle grade fiction. George tends toward caution and independent verification; Annie tends toward trust and enthusiasm. Both instincts serve them at different moments in the story.

Annie in particular is given more space in this book than in some of the earlier volumes. Her decision-making under pressure during the simulated mission is the scene that defines her in this installment, and it is well-handled: she makes a choice that is smart but not obviously right, and the book respects its consequences rather than quickly resolving them. The twelve candidates from around the world are sketched more briefly but the authors resist the temptation to make them simple types. A few of them, particularly the two children who become allies rather than rivals, are drawn with enough individuality to make the ensemble feel populated rather than generic.

Eric, Annie’s father, continues to function as the adults’ connection to the real science. His role is quieter in this book than in some earlier entries; the children are more on their own here, which is appropriate for the fifth installment of a series in which the protagonists have been gradually earning more independence. His appearances are well-timed: he shows up to explain something when the explanation would otherwise require a digression that would slow the plot, and he stays out of the way when the story needs the children to solve things themselves.

Pacing

The first half of the book moves a little slowly compared to the second. The setup of the TAEUS competition involves a lot of introductions, and while the individual scenes are engaging, it takes some time for the central conflict to sharpen. Once George and Annie begin to suspect that TAEUS has a hidden agenda, the pace picks up considerably and does not let up through the final quarter. The simulated Mars mission sequence near the end is the book’s best extended passage: tense, scientifically coherent, and with consequences that feel genuinely dangerous rather than safely reversible.

The science essays are distributed well throughout the text. A few are slightly long for the flow of the narrative, but most land at moments when a pause is welcome. A chapter covering the history of Mars exploration appears just before George and Annie arrive at the TAEUS facility, which makes it feel like preparation rather than interruption. The visual design, with full-page illustrations and typographic breaks between sections, helps signal to young readers when they are in story mode versus learning mode, which is a useful cue for a book that moves between both registers.

Deeper Thematic Exploration

The George series has always been interested in the question of what science is for: whether its purpose is knowledge, power, survival, or something more personal. George and the Blue Moon makes that question explicit by putting children in a situation where adults are using the excitement of space exploration to manipulate them. TAEUS offers something genuinely wonderful, a chance to go to Mars, and uses that offer to extract things from the children without their informed consent. The book does not moralize about this, but it takes it seriously. George and Annie’s suspicion is the story’s moral core: knowing that a thing is exciting does not mean you should trust everyone offering it to you.

The book also takes a thoughtful position on competition. The TAEUS selection process is ostensibly competitive, but the children who succeed are the ones who help each other rather than the ones who try to win by outperforming their peers. This is not presented as a naive lesson about cooperation being nicer than competition. The story earns it: the problems the candidates face are genuinely unsolvable without collaboration, and the book is honest that collaboration requires trusting people you cannot fully verify, which is a real risk. The message is specific rather than generic: some problems require cooperation, and recognizing which ones is itself a skill.

The Mars setting allows the book to think about humanity’s relationship to other worlds and about the question of what we are willing to risk for discovery. Stephen Hawking wrote extensively in his later years about the importance of humans becoming a multi-planetary species, and some of that urgency comes through in the narrative. But it is balanced against a realistic account of what sending humans to Mars would actually cost, physically and personally. The book is optimistic about space exploration without being naive about the difficulty.

Style and Voice

Lucy Hawking writes with a clean, direct style that serves the story well. She avoids the sort of strained cleverness that sometimes afflicts adult writers trying to write for children. The voice trusts that young readers can follow a slightly complicated plot and does not over-explain. The dialogue is naturalistic without being self-consciously casual, which is harder to achieve than it looks in middle grade fiction. Characters sound like themselves across different emotional registers, which matters in a book with a lot of dialogue and a relatively large cast.

The science sections, written in a different register, are clear and accurate without being dry. Stephen Hawking had a gift for finding the genuinely surprising thing about a topic and leading with it, and the essays in this book demonstrate that gift. The section on what Mars looks like from the surface, drawing on actual rover photography, is particularly vivid. Young readers who read the science sections carefully will come away with real knowledge they can apply to other material about space exploration.

Verdict

This is a strong entry in a series that has maintained its quality across five volumes, which is not a given. For a child who has read the earlier books, it offers a satisfying continuation and a more complex story than some of the earlier installments. For a child encountering the series for the first time, it works as a standalone, though a few references to prior adventures will be slightly opaque. Parents or teachers looking for middle grade fiction that takes science seriously, integrates accurate information without breaking the story’s momentum, and trusts its young readers to handle real stakes and genuine uncertainty will find this a good choice. Children who are curious about Mars in particular will find it hard to put down.

The one honest caveat is that the book’s first half requires some patience. The payoff is there, but it takes a while to arrive. A confident young reader who has been told to expect a slow start will likely push through. A less motivated reader might need some encouragement around chapter eight. Once the competition turns genuinely dangerous, that problem disappears entirely.

Frequently Asked Questions about George and the Blue Moon

What is George and the Blue Moon by Lucy and Stephen Hawking about?

George and the Blue Moon is the fifth book in the George’s Secret Key to the Universe series. George and his friend Annie are invited to compete for spots on a junior crew for a future Mars mission, organized by a mysterious organization called TAEUS. As they undergo a strange and increasingly dangerous selection process, they discover that TAEUS may have a hidden agenda that has nothing to do with space exploration. The book blends middle grade adventure fiction with real science about Mars, the history of space exploration, and what a crewed mission to Mars would actually require.

Do I need to read the earlier George books before this one?

The book works as a standalone, though you will get slightly more from it if you have read the earlier volumes. The core relationships, particularly George and Annie’s friendship and their connection to Annie’s scientist father Eric, have context from the previous books that enriches some moments here. The science content is fully self-contained, and the plot does not require knowledge of earlier adventures to follow. If you want to start with the first book, George’s Secret Key to the Universe, published in 2007, provides the best introduction to the world and characters.

What age group is George and the Blue Moon for?

The book is aimed at readers between about eight and twelve, which is the standard middle grade range. Confident readers around seven who are interested in space will likely manage it fine. The science sections are accurate and not simplified to the point of being misleading, which means readers on the older end of the range will still find the science content genuinely informative. Adults reading alongside children will find the story engaging and the science accurate enough to hold up to scrutiny.

Is the science in George and the Blue Moon accurate?

Yes. The science sections were overseen by Stephen Hawking and reflect the state of actual research on Mars exploration at the time of publication in 2016. The descriptions of Mars’s surface, atmosphere, gravity, and the challenges of a crewed mission are accurate. The book also discusses real Mars missions, including rover missions that were active at the time, and gets the technical details right. The narrative science, the things George and Annie learn and discuss during the story, is also accurate rather than simplified to the point of distortion.

What are the main themes in George and the Blue Moon?

The main themes include trust and the limits of trust, the ethics of using exciting goals to manipulate people, the value of cooperation over individual competition, and the tension between humanity’s drive to explore and the real risks that exploration demands. The book also returns to a theme central to the series: what science is actually for, and who gets to decide. The treatment of these themes is appropriate for middle grade readers without being preachy or simplistic.

Is there a movie or TV adaptation of the George’s Secret Key to the Universe series?

As of 2024, there is no announced film or television adaptation of the series. The books have been published in dozens of languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide, so adaptation interest has been reported, but nothing has been announced for George and the Blue Moon specifically. If an adaptation is released after this review was written, that information will not be reflected here.

How does George and the Blue Moon compare to other books in the series?

Most readers and reviewers consider it among the stronger entries in the series. The mystery plot is more developed than in some earlier books, the characters have more depth after four volumes of development, and the Mars setting gives the science sections particular urgency given ongoing real-world Mars exploration. The first half is slower than the series’ best pacing, but the second half more than compensates. Fans of the series who found the earlier books too episodic will appreciate that this one has a more sustained arc.

Should I read George and the Blue Moon with my child?

It is well-suited for shared reading. The science sections give adults and children something to discuss together beyond the plot, and the ethical questions the story raises, about trust, competition, and what space exploration is actually for, are interesting to explore across age groups. The book does not talk down to either audience, which makes conversation between them easier. If you are reading with a child who is genuinely interested in space or astronomy, the book will give you a shared frame of reference for those conversations for some time afterward.