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A winner of the Retro Hugo Award in 2001, "Farmer in the Sky" is a novel targeted at a young adult audience.

Heinlein describes the journey of William (Bill) Lermer from an overpopulated earth to a fresh colony on Jupiter's moon Ganymede. Bill is part of a patchwork family, his father a widower, remarrying to a woman who brings a daughter into the family.

The journey and development on Ganymede offer a young boy's adventure story with action (when a meteor punctures the hull of their space ship and later on Ganymede, when a rare star constellation causes severe earthquakes), boy scout-isms, the pains of growing up and a little romance, only that our protagonist Bill doesn't fall for it.

Also published in a condensed form as "Satellite Scout" in Boys' Life Magazine in 1950, the story slightly touches on the subject of overpopulation on earth and the worst outcome of such a development: War. Unfortunately, this subject only appears briefly and gloomily.
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