By Francess Lantz - Stepsister From the Planet Weird (1905-07-07) [Audio CD]

by Francess Lin Lantz

Although twelve-year-old Megan usually discounts her younger brother's outer space fantasies, she is not so certain that he is wrong when he suggests that the unusual man with whom their surfer mother has fallen in love and his seemingly perfect daughter are aliens.Megan usually discounts her younger brother's fantasies, but is not so certain that he is wrong when he suggests that the man with whom their mother has fallen in love and his daughter are aliens

Genres: Science Fiction, Childrens, Young Adult, Middle Grade, Juvenile

Audio CD

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Francess Lin Lantz (b. August 27, 1952, Trenton, New Jersey — d. November 22, 2004, Santa Barbara, California) was an American children's librarian turned fiction writer, whose fan base was mostly preteen and teenaged girls.

For more than two decades, Lantz wrote more than 30 books, including several juvenile bestsellers. She won the American Library Association's Best Book for Young Adults award for her 1997 romance, Someone to Love. Stepsister from Planet Weird (Random House, 1996) was made into a Disney Channel television movie in 2000.

Born in Trenton, New Jersey, Lantz was raised in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She initially aspired to become a rock musician and composer. She graduated in 1974 from Dickinson College (in Pennsylvania) and from Simmons College (in Boston) in 1975, where she earned a master's degree in library sciences.

She died in Santa Barbara, California in 2004 following a five years long battle with ovarian cancer; she was 52 years old.

Reviews

[Andrea]

The setting took place on Earth and it affected the story b/c there was a little blond girl and her father that was not from here. Her father was going to work on a bussiness and she thought that it was going to be temporary. Until her dad like the pizza and the tv. But if they wanted to go anywhere thay had to ware a human suit to cover up there allen body. But the daughter did not like the fact that she had to ware a human suit. She thought it was big and baggy and hard to walk in and all she wanted to do was to go home. Then they were going to but her father had a nother idea by meating a woman. By runing into her and then going out to dinners and all that normally dating stuff. But her two kids named Megan and Ariel both tried and falled to break up the two it did not work thou.

The auther used the charateris by taking the two children on her side and the child on his going agenest each other just to try and break them up. But the parents of the childern try to stop them and sucksed. But then at the end the got married the kids put there differences behind them and became a family. This connected to me b/c my mom is dating a guy with two boys and my mom has two boys and two girls. They want to get married down the road and there is brothers fighting with brothers and kids on my mom side that want to go back home and not stay there any more.

This book devolped b/c the dad had to work on earth just for his bos and do what he needed to do there and then they would be done and go home to there planet. The plot of the story was that the kids did not like each other and there parent.

Also i am done with the book

[Aidan Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think tis book was okay. I only read it because I had no other books to read, but it ended up being pretty good. It is about two girls, Ariel, who is from planet Zirclonian (idk how to spell) 6, and is forced to com to Earth because of her crazy father. Megan is your average surfer teenage girl. They dislike each other, but work together to bring their parents together.

[TL *Humaning the Best She Can* · Rating 3 out of 5]

rating this book from reading it when i was younger... i remember it being a favorite of mine:) guessing at the year

[Ilene Marcusen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Stepsister From Planet Weird as part of my self-assigned project: reading as many DCOM, aka Disney Channel Original movie, books as I can find. Even the picture for the book is a still from the TV movie. I was listening to my favorite podcast, Mom Can't Cook, thinking that this would be a great book to look at next after the wild ride that was The Jennie Project, and I was right.

This is an odd duck, both as a book and as a movie. It is a lot more about two families of divorce coming together than it is about aliens, which serves as a metaphor for feeling out of place. As with my last book to DCOM review, here is a list of differences between the book and the film:

1)Cosmo is not a freedom fighter. He is just an oddball who prefers a solid form, which his species finds generally distasteful.
2)The mom is an even worse cook than Disney portrays. She makes Peanut butter and jellybean tacos for her children to eat.
3)Megan and Micky's dad is not a workaholic and he is even inconsistent in getting his child support checks to the family.
4)There is no war at all on Zircalon-6. Cosmo had a job finding helium on foreign planets and Earth is one of them. He loved the television shows he saw and decided to stay there.
5)No one from Ariel and Cosmo's home planet comes to get them. Instead, Micky gets lost and trapped in a cave on the beach as the tide is rising.
6)Cosmo and Ariel have no digestive system and never need to use the bathroom. I suppose that could be in the film, but it is stated outright in the book. Cosmo only made their human bodies accurate to what he saw on television and that didn't include bowels.
7)Cosmo and Ariel are not soap bubbles. They are a species that can go from gas to water to solid. Apparently the gas form is the ideal. Water is seen as a childish enjoyment and solid is seen as either a duty or a punishment.

What stays the same? Honestly, very little of the plot remains, but here are some aspects that survive the jump:

1)Ariel's mom did die before they came to Earth. Of course, she had already separated from Cosmo before that because he liked a solid form, meaning that Ariel is stuck in a difficult situation as a minor who has to follow the living parent.
2)Ariel and Megan accidentally get the neighbor psychic and Megan's bio dad together at a dinner party.
3)The way Ariel talks about her human body being disgusting is pretty spot on.

Basically, if you enjoy a blast from the past and you want to read a book that makes you feel like a kid again, this is a good option. Try reading and watching the film for a fun, nostalgic filled 90s night.

[Gren]

I read this book in the 4th grade and I think this was the first time I read a book after watching a film that it was based on. I remember taking note of the differences between the book and the film, but I can't remember if I enjoyed it or not. I love this movie though

[Bryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

She is weird.

[Marsha · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Stepsister from the Planet Weird” shines a light on a typical modern dilemma—dealing with stepchildren after the parents get divorce. It’s never an easy situation and Ms. Lantz’s inclusion of two aliens from another planet serves to emphasize the various problems that arise when different families try to meld together.

There are certain aspects of this story that niggled at me. I wondered at the older adult alien’s childlike tendencies while finding the child alien’s perfect diction and adult vocabulary baffling. Was this normal for their planet or merely an idiosyncrasy of their particular family? Cos’s slip-ups about Canadian meteorology seemed patently bad, too, considering the fact that he was an interstellar explorater. His Earth girlfriend’s curious obliviousness about his odd behavior didn’t make sense, either. I know that love is blind but she’d already been married once—wouldn’t she be more careful about potential beaus, not less?

However, “Stepsister” manages to rise above such concerns as we witness the two very different girls get closer together in order to sort out misunderstandings and work as one for common goals.

[Colleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading this book as a kid. I enjoyed it so much that I have been trying to find out what it was because I had forgotten what it was. A great children's scifi/stepfamily story that I remember being delightfully entertaining, funny, and poignant. It was definitely a great read.

[Michelle Welc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun book to read for a younger audience

[Kellie]

weird people are not always mean.