Review Detail

Albie Bright’s mom has died after a long illness, and he’s heartbroken. While trying to sort out his feelings about losing her, he asks his dad (a scientist—as was Albie’s mom) if he believes in heaven. “And that’s” says Albie “when Dad started to tell me about quantum physics.”

Albie’s dad explains that some quantum physicists believe that there are parallel universes where slight differences exist; therefore, it’s possible that there is a parallel universe where Albie’s mom is still alive. Albie latches on to this explanation and becomes determined to find a way to find his mom alive in one of those universes.

THE MANY WORLDS OF ALBIE BRIGHT by Christopher Edge is a brief but beautiful book about love, death, and science. It incorporates humor and simplified scientific explanations to tell the tale of Albie’s quest to find his mother. I really liked Albie, and his loving descriptions of his mom made me wish we could have spent more time with her outside of his memories. By the time I reached the end of the book, I was longing to see her almost as much as Albie was. This is a book that required some tissues as I worked my way through it, and although my time with the book itself went quickly, the characters and the message will stay with me for a long time. Hopefully some of the science knowledge will stick with me too, because science has never really been my thing, and the explanations in this book helped me far more than my Physics for Poets class in college!

I highly recommend this book, and I think it would be a great one to use in the classroom for a variety of reasons.

My thanks to YA Books Central and the publisher for a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.