There's one big ques­tion cir­cu­lat­ing around the world of lit­er­a­ture these days, and here it is: Couldthe nov­el I am Num­ber Four, by Pit­ta­cus Lore, be­come the next Twi­light se­ries? The pop­u­lar Young Adult (YA) book, with a se­quel due to be re­leased in March, al­ready has a pop­u­lar web­site and a movie in the mak­ing. I Am Num­ber Four is the riv­et­ing, ac­tion-packed sto­ry of nine aliens who flee their plan­et whenevil, con­quer­ing Mo­gado­ri­ans threat­en them.They come to earth and hide, quite un­de­tect­ed, among the nor­mal pop­u­la­tion. The first­Lo­riens hides in Kenya; the sec­ond in Eng­land, the third in Kenya and the fourth in Ohio.

Earth, it turns out, is no safe haven.Even though the Lo­riens spread out among dif­fer­ent coun­tries when they come to earth, the­yare be­ing hunt­ed sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly by the Mo­gado­ri­ans.When the first three Lo­riens are de­stroyed, John Smith, who is hid­ing out in Par­adise, Ohio, be­comes fourth on the Mo­gado­ri­ans' hit list. I Am Num­ber Four is sci-fi ad­ven­ture at its best.Any­one from 12 to 19 will en­joy the tense dra­ma.The chap­ters are short, the lan­guage is crisp and the plot-dri­ven sto­ry makes for a hair-rais­ing, read­ing ex­pe­ri­ence.

The char­ac­ters are in­ter­est­ing­be­cause they're so mys­te­ri­ous.They look hu­man, but they have su­per­pow­ers. There isn't a lot of char­ac­ter de­vel­op­ment, but read­ers who like a fast-paced book don't seem to mind I Am Num­ber Four. Come March, as I said, there will be a se­quel to I am Num­ber Four.It will be called The Pow­er of Six.The nov­els are al­ready be­ing billed as the Lo­rien Lega­cies, which sug­gests a se­ries in the mak­ing. There's a re­al­ly cool, of­fi­cial movie web­site at find­num­ber­four.com. There you'll find in­for­ma­tion about the movie in the mak­ing.

There's a fan page at iamnum­ber­four­fans.com.This site has in­for­ma­tion about the movie and books. There are news sto­ries and a link for ac­tiv­i­ties that in­cludes games, sweep­stakes and quizzes. There's even a Lo­rien horo­scope. You'll be amazed how many cool things there are on this web­site. It's filled with brain teasers in­clud­ing a mys­te­ri­ous let­ter from Pit­ta­cus Lore, the rul­ing Lo­rien el­der who wrote I Am Num­ber Four. There's al­so a very use­ful link that sum­maris­es the char­ac­ters in the nov­el and a blog for read­ers to add their com­ments.Stephen Spiel­berg is pro­duc­ing the movie of I Am Num­ber Four, which is be­ing di­rect­ed by D. J. Caru­so.

I Am Num­ber Four promis­es to be more than a great nov­el. It's be­ing billed as a read­ing ex­pe­ri­ence in much the same way that The Twi­light Se­ries was.When it comes to ex­cite­ment and in­trigue, I Am Num­ber Four has one big thing go­ing for it that the Twi­light se­ries did not have, and that's the mys­tery of the au­thor. Who ex­act­ly is Pit­ta­cus Lore? That's a mys­tery for spell­bound read­ers to­solve.

Deb­bie Ja­cob

gieN­ET­WORK Ed­u­ca­tion Con­sul­tant