79. The Lion of Mars by Jennifer L. Holm

Read the book, from SPS library
2021
235 pgs.
Mid Grade SciFi
Finished  7/25/21
Goodreads rating: 4.15 - 1010 ratings
My rating: 5
Setting: Mars

First line/s: "The trip to Mars was the hardest thing they'd ever experienced.  That's what the grown-ups said."

My comments: I was so sad when this book came to an end.  It was exceptional.  Five kids and six adults live in the American compound inside a lava tunnel on Mars.  There are four other similar colonies close by:  France, Finland, Russia, and China, but for years they have been alienated.  Then all the American adults get deathly ill.  The kids don't, and after some bravery on the part of the protagonis, Bell, things begin to change.  A really wonderful story.

Goodreads synopsis:  A kid raised on Mars learns that he can't be held back by the fears of the grown-ups around him.
          Bell has spent his whole life - all eleven years of it - on Mars. But he's still just a regular kid - he loves cats, any kind of cake, and is curious about the secrets the adults in the US colony are keeping. Like, why don't have contact with anyone on the other Mars colonies? Why are they so isolated? When a virus breaks out and the grown-ups all fall ill, Bell and the other children are the only ones who can help. It's up to Bell - a regular kid in a very different world - to uncover the truth and save his family ... and possibly unite an entire planet.