NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Life on Mars is pretty standard…. until a mysterious virus hits. Don’t miss this timely and unputdownable novel from the bestselling author of The Fourteenth Goldfish. Bell has spent his whole life--all eleven years of it--on Mars. But he's still just a regular kid--he loves cats and any kind of cake, and is curious about the secrets the adults in the US colony are keeping. Like, why don't they have contact with anyone on the other Mars colonies? Why are they so isolated? When a virus breaks out and the grown-ups all fall ill, Bell and the other children are the only ones who can help. It's up to Bell--a regular kid in a very different world--to uncover the truth and save his family...and possibly unite an entire planet. Mars may be a world far, far away, but in the hands of Jennifer L. Holm, beloved and bestselling author of The Fourteenth Goldfish , it can't help but feel like home. “Peppered with such intriguing scientific details as the pervasive nature of Mars dust, Holm’s absorbing speculative novel is…rendered with a keen sense of place grounded by identifiable sociofamilial relationships.” — Publishers Weekly , starred review "The plot and setting are elegantly simple, yet the story proves completely engaging, driven by a charming cast of gentle characters and, more so, by Holm’s lean, measured prose, which moves briskly and seems to strike a resonant note on every page." — Booklist , starred review   “A delightful space adventure.” — Kirkus Reviews “The Lion of Mars looks past the red dust to reveal how our communities shape us just as much as our environments.” — Bookpage "The well-wrought setting, including thoughtful depiction of lowish-tech Martian life, and a strong cast of well-developed characters make for an intriguing and compelling read.” — The Horn Book Jennifer L. Holm is a New York Times bestselling children's author and the recipient of three Newbery Honors for her novels Our Only May Amelia, Penny From Heaven, and Turtle in Paradise . Jennifer collaborates with her brother, Matthew Holm, on two graphic novel series—the Eisner Award-winning Babymouse series and the bestselling Squish series. She lives in California with her husband and two children. Chapter One Nest The trip to Mars was the hardest thing they’d ever experienced. That’s what the grown-ups said. The small, cramped ship. The constant fear of something going wrong. The knowledge that they could never return to Earth. But honestly, it sounded like a cakewalk compared to sharing a bedroom with Albie. Because he snored. I hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since Albie started bunking with me. I’d tried just about everything to block the noise: earplugs, sleeping under the blanket, even a thick hat with earflaps. But none of them worked. It was surprising because Albie was perfect. He was easygoing and did his chores without complaining. Of all us kids, he was the least likely to throw a fuss. The grown-­ups trusted him, even Sai. But it turned out there was one thing Albie wasn’t good at: sleeping quietly. And I didn’t know which was worse: Albie’s snoring or Trey wanting to change rooms For as long as I could remember, Trey had slept in the bed across from mine. My drawings of cats and his drawings of aliens had papered the walls. Our plastic models crowded the shelves together. Then, two months ago, Trey suddenly asked to switch bedrooms. Next thing I knew, Trey was sleeping across the hall in the older kids’ room with Vera and Flossy, while Albie was snoring in mine. And me? I wasn’t sleeping at all. Neither was Leo, from the looks of it. The old cat was sitting up in bed, flicking his tail in annoyance. This room-­switching thing had happened once before. Back when Trey and I were little, the grown-­ups had moved us boys into one room and the girls into the other. Albie was older than me and Trey and so he was allowed to stay up later. The problem was that Albie would make a lot of noise when he came to bed, and he’d wake us up. The experiment was abandoned after a week. Now, all these years later, Albie was keeping me awake again. Across the room from me, Albie let out a loud, waffling snort. I groaned, pulling the pillow over my head. “Albie,” I said. He didn’t move. “Albie!” I shouted. He sat up abruptly, looking around the dimly lit room in confusion. Albie was tall, with broad shoulders. Darby said he would’ve made a good football player. Football was an Earth game where you threw around a ball and knocked into people. I didn’t really understand it. “What’s wrong, Bell?” Albie asked, his hair sticking out crazily everywhere. It was always funny to see him without his Dodgers ball cap. He only took it off at bedtime. “You’re snoring!” I said. “Oh,” he said. “I thought there was an emergency.” “It is an emergency! I can’t sleep!” “I’m so sorry, Bell,” he mumbled, and lay back down. “I promise not to snore anymore.” It was hard to be angry at Albie. He was kind and gentl