The Wrong Way Up by Niilo Kron

The Wrong Way Up follows two seventeen-year-old best friends. Reid Grant is a meticulous young engineer, and Axl Yates is a content creator trying to reach a quarter of a million followers. Axl mounts his homemade 360-degree camera on Reid's rocket, and the launch goes badly off course. The footage also captures a patterned shimmer in the sky that neither of them can explain. Their search for an answer draws in a local community centre, a rocketry consultant in a jacket covered in pins, and finally a classified research facility that has been studying the same thing for eighteen years.

The heart of the novel is the friendship between Axl and Reid, and it is written with real affection. Their exchanges are dry and often funny. Reid can make a whole argument with a text message that is nothing but a full stop, and the boys proudly quote their "seventy-five percent non-explosion rate." Their different talents fit together, and that gives the story its shape. Kron is also generous to his supporting cast. Liam is ten years old and has named himself Chief Telemetry Officer. With his colour-coded spreadsheets he steals every scene he is in, and the discovery he makes is one of the most satisfying turns in the book.

What sets this novel apart is its respect for the scientific method. Failure is treated as data, uncertainty is stated plainly, and the characters are rewarded for being honest about what they do not know. The technical material is handled with evident care. The glossary at the end makes the book a natural fit for curious younger readers and for classrooms.

The book's gentleness is also its main weakness. Once the rocket veers off course, very little stands in the characters' way. The adults all support them, the regulatory trouble fades away quietly, and the government agency is kind from its first appearance. Axl posts footage against his mentor's advice and pays no real price for it. The prose also has some habits that slow the middle chapters, especially its frequent explanations of what each look and pause means. Readers who want a clear answer to the mystery should know that the ending is left open on purpose. It sets up a continuation rather than a resolution.

Those reservations aside, The Wrong Way Up is a thoughtful, hopeful and cleanly written story about curiosity, teamwork and the value of getting things wrong. I would recommend it to readers of upper middle grade and young adult science fiction, and to anyone who enjoys stories driven by intelligence rather than conflict.