Today I’m interviewing Tyler Sato, the main character of THE CHALLENGERS, a humorous middle-grade book about aliens, sports, and the most important event in human history. Thanks for visiting Brain Burps about Books, Tyler.
Brain Burps? They told me this was Sports Illustrated. Do you have a swimsuit edition too?
How old are you, Tyler?
I turned eleven this year, and that’s when everything really started.
What happened?
Well, you’ve read the newspapers and everything, right? My cousins in Japan named a star in honor of my birthday, except that when we went to look at it at Dad’s observatory, it wasn’t really a star at all.
What was it?
At first, everyone thought it was a killer asteroid on a course to destroy the Earth–and it was named after me, so everyone was like, “TY SATO is coming right at us! Let’s blast TY SATO with a missle! TY SATO is going to kill us all! We hate TY SATO!” It was hard to be named Tyler Sato for a while.
So did your asteroid hit the Earth?
That’s the other thing that happened. It wasn’t actually an asteroid at all. It was a spaceship from Planet Mrendaria! The aliens were listening to our broadcasts and everyone was talking about TY SATO, TY SATO, TY SATO, so of course their captain wanted to meet me.
Cool. What happened next?
So I went into space, challenged Captain M’Frozza to a game, and won a chance for Earth to compete in the Galaxy Games. The details are all in my book, THE CHALLENGERS, by Greg R. Fishbone.
Thanks, Tyler. Where can people find out more about the book?
There’s a Galaxy Games series website and also a blog tour site that has a puzzle contest with crazy looking puzzle pieces like this one:

Very nice. Thanks for dropping by, Tyler. We’ll be looking out for more of your adventures!
(Submitted by Greg Fishbone, author of Galaxy Games)