Camp Launchpad (Absolute Zeros #1) (2024)

dreamgirlreading

262 reviews63 followers

March 3, 2024

Today I had the pleasure of reading the eARC of Absolute Zeros: Camp Launchpad written by Greg Smith and Michael Tanner and illustrated by Gabrielle Gomez. This graphic novel follows a “pod” of campers at a Florida space camp called Camp Launchpad. Val, Mark, and Pete all come from different backgrounds and have their own unique reasons for spending their summer at Camp Launchpad. At first, it seems like the trio’s conflicting personalities will sour the whole summer. But with the training for the Space Race competition against other area space camps, and with the guidance from their experienced teachers, the kids begin to learn the importance of team work and trust. They don’t let one particular rival camp and its bullies stop them from reaching for the stars! I especially loved that there was an interview at the end with real NASA scientist, Dr. Darlene Lim! Look out for this one releasing March 5 😊

January 2, 2024

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

Camp Launchpad has been around for a while, but it is a space camp that has fallen on hard times. Becca's Uncle Fred runs it, and she helps, but the staff is fairly small, including pioneering astronaut Rhea Hae and Gage McGuff, a former military man. Campers include Mark, whose father is the vice president of the US and a former camper, who drops him off and hopes that his son will have a good time, even though he would rather be with his posh friends and the much fancier Star-X camp, run by billionair Xander Santos. Pete is quiet and not as wealthy as the other campers, since he is there on scholarship and has a large family. Val Herman is at the camp while her mother, an astronaut, is in space. She's SUPER excited to be at camp and lets everyone know it. The campers are assigned to pods, and the A-Zero pod is the three campers we've just met. For some reason, the other campers are not particularly nice to them, especially Pete. There are tons of camp activities, like building rockets and assessing their performance, constructing boxes for egg drops, although swimming is off the table because the swampy, unkempt pool has an alligator in it! When the campers go to a museum, Val knocks over a display, and overhears Fred talking to Xander Santos. The two make a bet; if Camp Launchpad can win the Space Race competition, Santos will give Fred ten million dollars, but if they lose, Santos will bulldoze the camp. This gives Val the underdog spirit that she needs, which is reinforced when Mark's friends from Star-X are snotty to them as well. Back at camp, the three "Absolutel Zeros" hone their skills in coding, building, troubleshooting, and working with antigravity machines, and eventually get chosen to represent the camp in the Space Race. Will their desire to save the camp make them triumphant?
Strengths: This had a lot of good details about what might go on at a space camp, and it was interesting to see the children having to identify reasons why their rockets don't launch well and work through problems with coding. I'm sure many summer camps have fallen on hard times, so that was a completely realistic plot arc. The three main characters are different enough that they each add another layer to the story. The competition is interesting, and there is a twist at the end that was not something I expected. In the last year or so, there have been a lot more different kids of graphic novels, and this will appeal to readers who want something a bit different.
Weaknesses: There's never any reason stated why the other campers at Camp Launchpad are mean to the pod A-Zero campers, nor do Mark's friends from school have any reason to be so nasty to the vice president's son.
What I really think: This is a good choice for readers who can't get enough novels about space camps, like Lackey's Further Than the Moon, Giles' Epic Ellisons: Cosmos Camp, and Gardner's graphic novel Long Distance. This also reminded me a bit of Miller's Out There, a graphic novel which deals more with a road trip and hunting space aliens.

Caroline

1,471 reviews16 followers

March 21, 2024

A classic middle grade summer camp story gets a space camp upgrade in this start to a graphic novel series. Camp Launchpad, once a popular and high-tech summer camp for space motivated kids, has fallen on dire straits and now faces competition from a flashier, rival Space Camp -- camp Star-X. Some kids, like Valerie Hermans whose mother is an astronaut, are thrilled to be at Camp Launchpad; others, like Mark Maxon whose father is the Vice President of USA, is disappointed to be at the low-tech camp, somewhere in the middle is Pete Duarte a scholarship recipient who is a little shy and overwhelmed. When Val discovers that Star-X is trying to take over Camp Launchpad she, and their camp advisor Fred, make a deal that if Camp Launchpad wins the Space Race at the end of the summer, Star-X will fund the camp -- otherwise they'll be forced to sell.
The plot is familiar but well-executed with quirky characters and lots of summer camp fun. Val, Mark, and Pete are forced to become friends but over the course of the novel learn to work together and overcome their underdog status.

    2024 comics friendship

Abby Alquicira

108 reviews

September 1, 2024

A cute graphic novel about three kids at space camp. The tech may not be the best-to-date, but it works for these kids.
The three campers must learn to work together with their own differences. A moment I loved was between a teacher and a camper. It went as follows
Camper: “But I was the leader, they needed to listen to me”
Teacher: “Is that all you think leadership is? Is that what you think I did? Every successful mission I’ve been apart of succeeded because I had a team that I trusted and that trusted me.
We can plan all we want, but when it comes down to it, when our crew’s lives are on the line, safety ALWAYS come first.”

Just a simple sweet story. It took me a bit to get into. The fighting/bickering lasted longer than I’d like. But hey, that made the teamwork that much better in the end.

This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.

    tw-graphic-nov tween
Camp Launchpad (Absolute Zeros #1) (2024)

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