Listen to Barb Gross as she recommends Scaled by J.T. Ashmore. This is Barb Gross with the Sioux City Public Library, and you’re listening to “Check it Out.” Today, I’m recommending Scaled , Book One of the Deep Skin young adult trilogy by J.T. Ashmore, which is a pen name for two brilliant local writers you may recognize. Tricia Currans-Sheehan and Jeanne Emmons, both well-known for their years at Briar Cliff University, teamed up to write Scaled and the other two books in this science fiction series. In the opening scene of the book, a meteor carrying alien DNA strikes the Earth in the Midwest. Zack, a teenager living close to the crash site, rushes out to investigate and becomes “infected.” He and many other teens start to develop iridescent scales on their bodies, which causes widespread alarm among authorities who fear that the condition is contagious and could be the start of a pandemic.