Bill Lerner and his father George decide to emigrate to Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede, to begin a new life as farmers along with George’s new wife Molly and her young daughter, Peggy.

During their journey aboard the interplanetary colony ship Mayflower, the kids decide to form new branches of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and Bill becomes a hero when he uses his old Scout uniform to plug a hull breach in his shared quarters compliments of a fist-sized meteor.

The pacing slows once they reach Ganymede and begin to build their new lives. George takes up a part time job as an engineer, his profession back on Earth, while Bill sets out to terraform his family’s allotted land and build their new home. Along the way, the Lerner’s receive help from their neighboring farmers and the Ganymede Boy Scouts.

Then, disaster strikes…

Compared to Heinlein’s other juvenile space adventures—such as Have Space Suit, Will Travel, Citizen of the Galaxy, or Starman Jones—Farmer in the Sky lacks suspense, tension, and developed characters beyond the protagonist. Instead, it is a first-person POV chronicling of emigration from Earth to Ganymede with several dramatic events scattered throughout. For example, I was disappointed when a certain supporting character’s death happened “off camera” and was glossed over in the final chapters. However, this might be to due to the fact that the book was intended for younger audiences during a time when writers trod lightly when dealing with sensitive topics.

As usual with Heinlein, his attention to even the minutest scientific and practical details—however fictionalized—offers the reader a sense of verisimilitude and plausibility. There is a fair balance between moving the story forward and describing the processes and pitfalls involved in taming the inhospitable surface of Ganymede.