Tesla's Attic (The Accelerati Trilogy Series #1)

by Neal Shusterman, Eric Elfman

Overview

Fans of intrigue, action, humor, and nonstop surprises are guaranteed an adventure unlike any other in Tesla's Attic, Book One of the Accelerati Trilogy, for readers of "Rick Riordan's Kane Chronicles or Kenneth Oppel's Airborne" (Booklist). 

After their home burns down, fourteen-year-old Nick, his younger brother, and their father move into a ramshackle Victorian house they've inherited. When Nick opens the door to his attic room, he's hit in the head by a toaster. That's just the beginning of his weird experiences with the old junk stored up there. After getting rid of the odd antiques in a garage sale, Nick befriends some local kids—Mitch, Caitlin, and Vincent—and they discover that all of the objects have extraordinary properties. What's more, Nick figures out that the attic is a strange magnetic vortex, which attracts all sorts of trouble. It's as if the attic itself has an intelligence . . . and a purpose.

Ultimately Nick learns that the genius Nikola Tesla placed the items-his last inventions-in the attic as part of a larger plan that he mathematically predicted. Nick and his new friends must retrieve everything that was sold at the garage sale and keep it safe. But the task is fraught with peril-in addition to the dangers inherent in Tesla's mysterious and powerful creations, a secret society of physicists, the Accelerati, is determined to stop Nick and alter destiny to achieve its own devious ends. It's a lot for a guy to handle, especially when he'd much rather fly under the radar as the new kid in town.

Read more of the Accelerati Trilogy:
Edison's Alley
Hawking's Hallway
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781423155133
Publisher:	Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	01/13/2015
Series:	The Accelerati Trilogy , #1
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	323,694
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.50(h) x 0.80(d)
Lexile:	870L (what's this?)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Neal Shusterman (www.nstoryman.com) is the author of dozens of books for young readers, including the bestselling Arc of a Scythe trilogy, National Book Award winner Challenger Deep, the bestselling Unwind and Skinjacker trilogies, and the critically acclaimed The Schwa Was Here and Downsiders. The other two books in the Accelerati Trilogy, which Neal co-wrote with Eric Elfman, are Edison's Alley and Hawking's Hallway. As a screen and TV writer, Neal created scripts for the Goosebumps and "Animorphs" TV series, and he wrote the Disney Channel Original Movie Pixel Perfect. Neal has two grown sons and he lives with his two daughters in Southern California.

Eric Elfman (www.elfmanworld.com) is a screenwriter, a professional writing coach, and the author of several books for children and young adults, including The Very Scary Almanac and The Almanac of the Gross, Disgusting & Totally Repulsive; three X-Files novels; and two books of scary short stories, Three-Minute Thrillers and More Three-Minute Thrillers. He has sold screenplays to Interscope, Walden Media, Revolution, and Universal Studios. He lives in Brandywine Canyon, California with his wife and son.

Editorial Reviews

Lively, intelligent prose elevates this story of teenagers versus mad scientists, the third-person point of view offering a stage to various players in their play of galactic consequence. A wild tale in the spirit of Back to the Future, with a hint of Malamud's The Natural tossed in.”—Kirkus Reviews

“This collaboration between Shusterman and Elfman tempers the scarier elements of Nick's quest with deft, humorous writing and plenty of the ordinary adventures of a new kid in school finding his niche. Hand this one to fans of Rick Riordan's Kane Chronicles or Kenneth Oppel's Airborne.”—Booklist

*“Shusterman and Elfman have crafted a plot more devious, characters far quirkier, climaxes (yes, there are two) more breathless, and a narration much, much funnier than recent mad-science offerings. Sticking with a third-person narration frees the authors to be as wryly and sophisticatedly witty as they please without compromising the veracity of their middle-school cast, resulting in storytelling as delightful as the story being told.”—Bulletin for the Center for Children's Books (starred review)

"With a dynamic mix of secret-society intrigue, quirky gadgetry, appealing teen characters, and humor, this series has the makings of a hit."—Horn Book

"The authors have fun with a large cast of characters (and the historical record), making for an exciting and imaginative thriller with some skillful twists."—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

12/02/2013
This entertaining and often surprising first book in Shusterman and Elfman’s Accelerati trilogy is well-timed to take advantage of the resurgent interest in Nicola Tesla (and an omnipresent interest in secret societies and conspiracies). Fourteen-year-old Nick’s family has just moved from Florida to Colorado after a fire that claimed the life of his mother. He discovers that the attic of his new house is filled with odd contraptions, and he hosts a yard sale in which dozens of people buy nearly everything, just before a mysterious government group shows up and attempts to claim it. Nick and his new friends Mitch, Vince, and Caitlin figure out that their devices can do much more than expected, like record people’s thoughts and display the future, as well as that the items were built by Tesla and part of a war between two secret societies. The authors have fun with a large cast of characters (and the historical record), making for an exciting and imaginative thriller with some skillful twists. Ages 8–12. Agent: Andrea Brown, Andrea Brown Literary Agency. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

03/01/2014
Gr 4–8—People flocked to Nick Slate's garage sale to buy up the junk found in the old Victorian house in Colorado Springs that his father inherited. In fact, an oversized stage light shone out into the rain, compelling neighbors to pay top dollar for gadgets, toys, and appliances. The 14-year-old is dumbfounded to learn that some of the items his classmates bought have peculiar features, such as Caitlin's reel-to-reel tape machine that records what she says, but plays back what she thinks-even embarrassing truths. Mitch's See 'n Say gadget predicts the future, and Vince's wet-cell electrodes can reanimate dead insects. Even Nick's brother, Danny, finds an old baseball glove that can change the arc of trajectory to catch any ball or flying sphere, making quite a spectacle at his baseball game. When sinister-looking men in pastel suits show up looking for the items, Nick and his new friends believe they are part of a group of scientists called the Accelerati and the teens must figure out the connection to Nikola Tesla, a contemporary of Thomas Edison's who once lived in Nick's house. Scientific details explain the basis for the far-fetched happenings, allowing readers to suspend their disbelief. The peril faced by this likable group of teens trying to keep Tesla's gadgets safe will keep mystery fans waiting anxiously for the next installment.—Vicki Reutter, State University of New York at Cortland

School Library Journal

2013-12-07
In Book 1 of the Accelerati Trilogy, Nick Slate cleans out his attic, holds a garage sale and changes "the very course of human existence." The junk in the attic of Nick's new house seems to be a "boneyard of uselessness," but the old toasters, electric mixers, cameras and tape recorders turn out to be lost inventions of a mad scientist, and finding them makes Nick and his friends "part of some invisible clockwork…churning its gears toward some dark, mysterious end." The box camera foretells the future, the See 'n Say toy channels the universe, little brother Danny's baseball glove draws stars from the sky, and a depleted wet-cell battery brings the dead to life. A posse of sinister scientists is after these objects for their own questionable ends, and if Nick's garage sale has unleashed forces that might end the world, they also might reveal a way to head off the extinction of the human race. Lively, intelligent prose elevates this story of teenagers versus mad scientists, the third-person point of view offering a stage to various players in their play of galactic consequence. A wild tale in the spirit of Back to the Future, with a hint of Malamud's The Natural tossed in. (Science fiction. 8-14)

Kirkus Reviews