Peter Pommer

Sixteen-year-old Christopher Pedersen is tired of his idyllic Pacific island life. His father's coral research grant in Tonga is drying up, and money is tight. To make things worse, he's got island fever. Christopher's ready for something new, but he's not sure what.

One day while repairing boats with his father, he encounters a mysterious cloud. Stunned, Christopher experiments with the strange vapor. He tests it with a stick, then a rock. To his amazement, they disappear. Christopher then puts his hand into the cloud. It also pixelates apart. Thinking the cloud is too crazy to explain, Christopher hides his secret. Then Christopher encounters the cloud again. This time he can't resist and enters, magically finding himself in a wealthy Manhattan prep school with a different name and a different family. Who has he become? What has happened? Utterly confounded, Christopher discovers that the cloud is a portal to another life, a parallel universe.

Stuck and bewildered, Christopher builds and explores his new life. He befriends Jake Blumenthal, a lively genius, Sachiko Tamura, a spirited Japanese-American girl, and Khalid, a personable prince of Morocco. But major conflicts quickly arise. Christopher discovers a senior is bullying Jake. Determined to help his new friend, Christopher is naively drawn into the New York City underworld. In the midst of this crisis, the cloud draws him back to the South Pacific. There he gains perspective among his family and friends, but additional challenges surface. On a school field trip to the Tokelau, a boating capsize leaves Christopher and his best friend, Maka, adrift at sea...

Christopher must navigate both worlds and tap into his yet unknown self-reliance and resourcefulness to survive and protect his friends. Through this, Christopher learns that his cosmic multiverse holds far more than he imagined and that trusting himself and making smart decisions are the heart of every life.

Christopher's Cloud is an adventure in realism that doesn't stop. Part sea story, part sci-fi, part realizing the wonder of good friends, this coming-of-age tale pits Christopher against problems he never could've imagined.