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When a group of teenage Florida track runners and their coach end up off the beaten trail, they come across an amazing sight to behold: a tree covered in bright blue leaves. After some of the group climb the tree and pluck off some leaves, the tree begins to shake and emits a blue dust that covers the area, causing all of them to pass out. When they awaken, everything seems normal, except that the tree is no longer blue. Also, the time on the coach’s GPS doesn’t add up with the time on the clock. In a short time, the group that calls themselves the Blugees learn that they have all been granted extraordinary powers due to their encounter with the tree. Encountering aliens, time travel, and an apocalyptic disaster on the horizon, the Blugees will have to work together to save as many people as they can.
Every superhero or superhero team needs an origin story, and this first book in the Blugees' saga gives the reader an understanding of where the characters get their powers and the tremendously grave decision they must shortly begin preparing for. Yet there’s more to this story than just action and the supernatural, introducing the reader to a group of very sincere and fully considered characters. The action and scale of the story escalate quickly, giving readers plenty of action and high stakes once the world of the book and its rules have been firmly established. The character development and level of vocabulary make this a strong work of young adult fiction, despite the main narrator being an adult rather than one of the children. That perspective adds some grounding and levelheaded responsibility to what fast becomes a wild adventure. Readers with an eye for fantasy or superhero-type fiction will be fascinated by the Blugees.