Kemi, 11, is eating Sunday breakfast with her parents when her younger sister, Lo, 17 months, draws their attention to the living room. Kemi’s dad investigates, followed by Kemi and her mom. On TV is news of a planet-altering, life-ending asteroid heading toward Earth. Kemi loves science and probability, but not now, when the chance of a full collision with earth is 87 percent. Kemi’s family goes to stay with Kemi’s aunt, uncle, and cousins across town in their old neighborhood. There is comfort there—Kemi and her family, who are Black, had moved into a neighborhood that is predominantly white and not as welcoming. Fixated on creating a time capsule to tell something meaningful about her family for future humans on earth, Kemi also hopes to help her dad, who had quit his high-pressure job, determine what kind of meaningful work he might have loved before their time runs out. As this story progresses, moments suggesting that the narrative Kemi is telling does not add up or reflect the literal truth of what is happening become more plentiful, until it’s clear the asteroid is a metaphor—Kemi’s response to some unknown trauma. The violent truth of what happened, and the devastating loss Kemi must face, is shocking and painful, rooted in racism and the response to Kemi’s Black family’s moving into a space that someone decided was not for them. Hope, healing, and change begin with confronting the hardest truths in this story of trauma, grief, and loss. (Ages 9-13)

“One of the best books I have read this year (maybe ever).” —Colby Sharp, Nerdy Book Club

NPR Books We Love 2023 | Publishers Weekly Best of 2023 | Winner of the Governor General's Literary Awards for Young People's Literature

A heart-wrenching middle grade debut about Kemi, an aspiring scientist who loves statistics and facts, as she navigates grief and loss at a moment when life as she knows it changes forever.

Eleven-year-old Kemi Carter loves scientific facts, specifically probability. It's how she understands the world and her place in it. Kemi knows her odds of being born were 1 in 5.5 trillion and that the odds of her having the best family ever were even lower. Yet somehow, Kemi lucked out.

But everything Kemi thought she knew changes when she sees an asteroid hover in the sky, casting a purple haze over her world. Amplus-68 has an 84.7% chance of colliding with earth in four days, and with that collision, Kemi’s life as she knows it will end.

But over the course of the four days, even facts don’t feel true to Kemi anymore. The new town she moved to that was supposed to be “better for her family” isn’t very welcoming. And Amplus-68 is taking over her life, but others are still going to school and eating at their favorite diner like nothing has changed. Is Kemi the only one who feels like the world is ending?

With the days numbered, Kemi decides to put together a time capsule that will capture her family’s truth: how creative her mother is, how inquisitive her little sister can be, and how much Kemi's whole world revolves around her father. But no time capsule can change the truth behind all of it, that Kemi must face the most inevitable and hardest part of life: saying goodbye.

"My heart hurt as I raced through the last chapters of this unique book that shines a light on family, friends, grief, and love." —Lisa Yee, author of Maizy Chen's Last Chance