LEARNING TO SWEAR IN AMERICA. Katie Kennedy. New York: Bloomsbury, 2016.  345p.  ISBN 978-161963909-6 hc. $17.99    Gr. 9-12    YA FIC

Yuri Strelnikov, a doctor of physics at age 17, is flown to Los Angeles, CA at a moment's notice to work with American scientists scrambling to prevent a huge asteroid from reaching Earth.  He's on loan from Russia where his work on antimatter is putting him in line for a Nobel Peace Prize.  In light of his own bright future, Yuri has good reason to save the world.  However, he finds himself closely supervised and isolated as he is shuttled from the laboratory to the hotel and back again.  There's tension between Yuri and NASA's Director of Near Earth Objects Program about the safest way to deflect the asteroid.  Yuri is young, but he knows physics better than almost anyone.  By chance, Yuri meets Dovie, the janitor's daughter, who helps him sneak away from his hotel and experience a bit of American life.  She introduces Yuri to her brother, Lennon, who is wheelchair-bound and has an edgy sense of humor.  The suspense never ends; only continues on from one predicament to the next until the final escape scene on the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit.  The uncrushable attitudes of Yuri, Dovie, and Lennon leave readers with hope for the future and, perhaps, future stories about these characters.
Lynette Suckow, Superiorland Preview Center, Marquette, MI