The Area 51 Stop and Shop
Summers in Saragoza Flats, Nevada, are normally pretty boring. But this summer, for twelve-year-old Mark and his cousin Rowdy, the summer is anything but boring and definitely not normal. From the moment Uncle Jess introduces them to the mysterious Captain Briscoe, their world is turned upside down.
The billboard towering above Uncle Jess’s store, the Area 51 Stop and Shop, offers free spaceship parking. Mark and Rowdy think it’s a joke until Uncle Jess and Captain Briscoe take them to a secret underground facility near the Stop and Shop that they have dubbed Area 51. This isn’t the Area 51 where rumors say the government is hiding a crashed spaceship and dead space aliens. In Uncle Jess’s Area 51, the space aliens are anything but dead and their ships really do fly.
Uncle Jess’s facility has secretly existed underground for generations. But when Mark’s sworn enemy, Jeremy Campbell, realizes there is more to the Stop and Shop than just a store, he vows to uncover the secret and reveal it to the world. That’s when the excitement really begins. As Mark and Rowdy struggle to protect the secret of Area 51 and the Stop and Shop, they begin to understand why Captain Briscoe says the term space alien is a relative term. The summer they thought would be a total bore turns into the most exciting and enlightening summer ever.
-- Shirleen Helfrick