boom! by Mark Haddon

boom! is a  quirky, sci-fi  adventure from the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. Set in England, it centers around Jimbo, who lives in a flat with his parents and older sister. Jimbo isn't doing real well in school and thinks the teachers might be planning to send him to a special school, so he and his friend sneak a walky-talky into the teachers lounge to see if they hear anything.  What they hear is out of this world--two teachers talking in a strange, unidentified language. Soon, Jimbo's friend disappears, Jimbo and his sister are racing to Scotland on a motorcycle to try to find him, and Jimbo ends up being transported to another planet with a wide variety of strange creatures. He finds his friend and they have to figure out a way to outwit the aliens and find their way home. Great fun, although many of the references and words are British, which may be hard for some American students to understand. Originally published in 1992 as Gridzbi Spudvetch, Haddon reworked it and republished it as boom! boom! by Mark Haddon. David Fickling Books, 2009.