THE BOY WHO REACHED FOR THE STARS A Memoir

Timothy Andrés Pabon speaks softly as he narrates Morillo's first-person account of his childhood. Morillo, who immigrated to New York from Ecuador with his mother, is now a systems engineer for Blue Origin. Previously, he worked on the Mars 2020 team. Pabon puts determination into Morillo's words as the space engineer recalls his drive to learn. At one point, Pabon delivers a tense action scene in which Morillo recounts bullets flying when a fugitive turned up in his neighborhood. Mostly, the recollections revolve around his studies and his protective family. Pabon's voice captures the sting of a college rejection letter and the sadness of deaths in Morillo's family. Morillo also tells listeners about his work, making the Mars project a metaphor for working through the pandemic. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine [Published: NOVEMBER 2023]