Everyone knows Stephen Hawking. He is famous for his ground-breaking theories and for his scientific books. But he has written books for children too. Yes, George’s Secret Key to the Universe is written by Stephen Hawking and his daughter, Lucy Hawking.

This book tells the story of George, who is a pretty ordinary boy except that his parents are technology-repellent and that doesn’t make him ordinary. His parents eat organic things, they don’t have electricity and they grow all their vegetables. He wants a computer but all he has is a pet pig, Freddy. 

Things get interesting when Freddy breaks into the fence of the next door house and George meets his new neighbours. His neighbours, Eric, a scientist and his daughter, Annie, are not in any way ordinary because of their super-intelligent computer, Cosmos. It can teleport people from one place to any other place in the Universe and it knows nearly everything.

Annie and George soon become great friends and Eric teaches them science with Cosmos. Soon they get used to travelling through the universe. They go on an adventure through the Solar System and learning its wonders. 

But it becomes dangerous when someone else gets to know the existence of Cosmos, and he happens to hate Eric. He fools Eric and George and traps them in a black hole! 

Read the book to know how they tackle this problem and get out of it. This book is a real page-turner and, believe me, you’ll learn tonnes of scientific information from this book.

Published in Dawn, Young World, June 4th, 2016