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I Was a Sixth Grade Alien
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- 7 referencing feature instances
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IWasASixthGradeAlien | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien | comment |
I Was a Sixth Grade Alien (My Best Friend Is An Alien in some countries) is a middle-grade science fiction series by Bruce Coville, in which Earth has been contacted by the Interplanetary Trading Federation, which is establishing a single embassy on Earth in Syracuse, New York. Its ambassador, Meenom Ventrah of the planet Hevi-Hevi, is bringing his son Pleskit Meenom with him, and insists the boy be treated like a normal Earth kid. That means enrolling him in the local elementary school as a sixth grade student, and after some initial difficulties, Pleskit gains a new best friend: resident alien aficionado Tim Tompkins, with whom he gets into all kinds of wild adventures.The series consists of: I Was a Sixth Grade Alien (1999)note 2020 title: Sixth Grade Alien The Attack of the Two-Inch Teacher (1999)note 2020 title: I Shrank My Teacher I Lost My Grandfather's Brain (1999)note 2020 title: Missing — One Brain! Peanut Butter Lover Boy (2000)note 2020 title: Lunch Swap Disaster Zombies of the Science Fair (2000) Don't Fry My Veeblax! (2000)note 2021 title: Class Pet Catastrophe Too Many Aliens (2000) Snatched From Earth (2000) There's an Alien in My Backpack (2000) The Revolt of the Miniature Mutants (2001) There's an Alien in My Underwear (2001)note 2022 title: Aliens, Underwear, and Monsters Farewell to Earth (2001) Disaster on Geembol Seven (1999-2000)note A serial adventure set pre-series and included as a bonus feature in books 1-6.It was adapted into a live action comedy series (a Canadian and UK co-production) in 1999, which lasted for two seasons.The books were reissued beginning in 2020, with new covers for all twelve and new titles for six of them. | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_1049848f | type |
Aliens Speaking English | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_1049848f | comment |
Aliens Speaking English: Most, if not all, of the aliens visiting Earth have learned English after years of studying it, and have a speed-learning method to teach it to others. It's not perfect though, as they have a hard time figuring out some words with multiple meanings, and there are times when a phrase (such as "going native") has an extremely negative connotation to Pleskit, whereas humans don't have trouble with it. | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_1b60dcba | type |
The Bully | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_1b60dcba | comment |
The Bully: Jordan Lynch, who's been harassing Tim since he moved to Tim's town two years before the start of the series. | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_24ddbe2b | type |
Saw "Star Wars" Twenty-Seven Times | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_24ddbe2b | comment |
Saw "Star Wars" Twenty-Seven Times: Protagonist Tim Tompkins mentions in the first book that he's been waiting for aliens to contact Earth since the first time he saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and that he's seen it 47 times by that point. | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_2fcf9bbc | type |
Gratuitous Foreign Language | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_2fcf9bbc | comment |
Gratuitous Foreign Language: Pleskit and other aliens tend to occasionally pepper their speech with words from their own language, when they don't have or aren't sure of the English translation. | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_32e05e5e | type |
The Prankster | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_32e05e5e | comment |
The Prankster: Beebo Frimbat, an imp from another planet who's featured in books 9 and 11. | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_3e3f9b19 | type |
Stay with the Aliens | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_3e3f9b19 | comment |
Stay with the Aliens: In book 8, Linnsy Vanderhof ultimately chooses not to return to Earth after undergoing Mental Fusion with Bur, an alien symbiont, deciding instead to travel the galaxy (much to her parents' distress, though they ultimately accept her decision). This has consequences in later books, as some people are suspicious about why she didn't come back. | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_5313c266 | type |
Bookends | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_5313c266 | comment |
Book Ends: Most, if not quite all, of the books start and end with a letter from Pleskit to his best Hevi-Hevian friend Maktel Geebrit. The first one plays with this in that it's the second and last chapters that feature Pleskit's letters. | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_53211774 | type |
Multi-Part Episode | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_53211774 | comment |
Multi-Part Episode: Books 7 and 8, which involve a visit to Earth by Pleskit's friend Maktel Geebrit and the arrival of trader Ellico vec Bur (a bipedal alien and his symbiont partner, respectively). While the visiting Maktel is very suspicious of them, resulting in book 7 ending in he, Tim, Linnsy, Pleskit and Pleskit's Veeblax being trapped on Ellico vec Bur's spaceship as it leaves Earth, book 8 reveals that the two are actually good guys working to stop a plot by Pleskit and Tim's old enemy Mikta-makta-mookta and revolves around the group stopping her from carrying out said plot. | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_640ebd81 | type |
Bizarre Alien Reproduction | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_640ebd81 | comment |
Bizarre Alien Reproduction: As revealed late in book 6, the seven shapeshifting species from Hevi-Hevi have the ability to, if they spend enough time away from others of their species, go through a kind of asexual reproduction in which a body part falls off and then turns into a combination egg and chrysalis that eventually turns into a full member of their species. This explains why Pleskit's Veeblax has acting so oddly throughout the book — it was getting ready to reproduce. | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_69cce3dc | type |
Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap! | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_69cce3dc | comment |
Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: An enemy of Pleskit says that she is planning to covertly teleport his entire class to an alien planet. Pleskit begins to explain how that is impossible as it would require a mirrored ball hanging over the class and everyone would have to be moving in a slow, rhythmic pattern. He stops as he realises that she is responsible for planning the school dance that night. | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_6da4d56e | type |
Conspicuously Public Assassination | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_6da4d56e | comment |
Conspicuously Public Assassination: Disaster on Geembol Seven concludes with an attempt at one of these — Pleskit has learned that the "constructs", a race of organic and machine hybrids who've been forced to live in an underground city on Geembol Seven due to prejudice against them, are in danger of having their city destroyed by a groundquake that would kill them all... and the rulers of Geembol Seven don't care and would in fact be happy to see them killed off, to erase an embarrassing part of their past. Pleskit arranges to expose this information to a massive crowd, only for a construct hunter to try and snipe him; it's thwarted, but at the cost of an ally's life. The citizens of Geembol Seven are not happy though, and end up overthrowing their government (which, in turn, results in Pleskit's Fatherly One being pulled off the planet by his superiors for Pleskit's inadvertently starting a revolution). | |
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I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_6da4d56e | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_733f713f | type |
HumanAlien | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_733f713f | comment |
Human Alien: Most of the aliens featured could pass off as human given a few tweaks. | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_76c30df4 | type |
Will Not Tell a Lie | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_76c30df4 | comment |
Will Not Tell a Lie: Pleskit, as the son of the first alien ambassador to Earth, is told that humans in general hate lying. As a result, he uses Brutal Honesty whenever he interacts with him — which naturally results in some problems. Only when he befriends Tim does he learn that humans lie all the time, and that the false information was planted by a saboteur wanting to engineer diplomatic incidents. | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_7d36715f | type |
Gasshole | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_7d36715f | comment |
Gasshole: Pleskit's people tend to use gaseous emissions with specific odors, usually to signify certain feelings. | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_8a0d290b | type |
Conlang | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_8a0d290b | comment |
Conlang: Pleskit's people have their own language. Coville includes translations for all its words used in the series so far at the end of each book. | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_ae50d11c | type |
Shrink Ray | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_ae50d11c | comment |
Shrink Ray: The Molecule Compactor, a Hevi-Hevian device that squeezes out the empty space in the atoms that make up a person or thing, greatly reducing their size (humans, for instance, are reduced to a mere two inches). It wears off on its own after a few hours. | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_b13bb418 | type |
Alien Among Us | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_b13bb418 | comment |
Alien Among Us: Pretty much the point of the story, except that everyone knows. | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_b9c673a6 | type |
Market-Based Title | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_b9c673a6 | comment |
Market-Based Title: Known as My Best Friend is an Alien is some regions. | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_c83a6950 | type |
Sleep Learning | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_c83a6950 | comment |
Sleep Learning: The Hevi-Hevians use this to learn new languages, and unlike most examples, it actually works. Before going to sleep, they take a special pill that places the brain in the same chemical state as it is at the time of the "language explosion", as they call it (meaning the state it was in when they were children and able to learn languages more effectively), then put on a helmet which plays the language into their brain as they sleep. About ten nights of this is enough to give them a basic command of the language. | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_d4055b8b | type |
Square-Cube Law | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_d4055b8b | comment |
Square-Cube Law: In book 2, Tim and his teacher have been shrunk to about two inches tall. However, as Pleskit had earlier explained, those affected retain their original weight. As Tim and Ms. Weintraub discover, this means that when Tim briefly jumps straight up and comes crashing back down, he breaks through the bottom of the drawer and out of the desk. | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_d51553de | type |
Our Wormholes Are Different | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_d51553de | comment |
Our Wormholes Are Different: The urpelli, essentially a type of tunnel through space; Pleskit says they're not exactly like the concept behind wormholes, but close enough. There are many, many of them, all connected to a Grand Urpelli, which makes transport and communication through the galaxy far faster and easier. Books 7 and 8 reveal that there's a second, previously undiscovered Grand Urpelli, which opens near Earth; its existence would make the Trader who controls the planet into probably the richest being in the galaxy, which is why some aliens have been trying to manipulate things so Meenom Ventrah gets recalled and one of them can take over as the ambassador to Earth. | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_dd45df38 | type |
Unfortunate Names | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_dd45df38 | comment |
Unfortunate Names: Pleskit's new protocol officer Kathryn Buttsman, whom Tim nicknames "The Butt". | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_de085a36 | type |
Green-Skinned Space Babe | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_de085a36 | comment |
Green-Skinned Space Babe: Blur, but given her age... | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_e3109dae | type |
Switching P.O.V. | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_e3109dae | comment |
Switching P.O.V.: Chapters in each book alternate between Tim and Pleskit's point of view. Books 6-8 also include chapters told by Linnsy Vanderhof, and 7-8 by Pleskit's friend Maktel Geebrit. | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_f3fac450 | type |
Brain in a Jar | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_f3fac450 | comment |
Brain in a Jar: Pleskit's "Grandfatherly One" died a long time ago, but his brain is preserved in a liquid-filled tank and can communicate with the outside world. Pleskit usually goes to consult with him when he has a problem — this advisory role is the whole reason he's kept around. | |
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| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_faad4df3 | type |
Mars Wants Chocolate | |
| I Was a Sixth Grade Alien / int_faad4df3 | comment |
Mars Wants Chocolate: The aliens visiting Earth want to find a reason to establish friendly relations with us, but we don't have anything they actually particularly want. Until, that is, they discover peanut butter. Not because it's so delicious, but because it supercharges their romantic and sexual drives. | |
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I Was a Sixth Grade Alien |
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