OUT OF THIS WORLD

Jack has long wondered why his family moves every year and why his parents treat him more like a military recruit than a kid—now he’s about to find out.

No question, Jack’s parents are weird. His dad’s survival training includes surprise attacks launched at dawn for Jack to evade; his mom, an academic coach, is disappointed in him—he can’t even recite Shakespeare’s complete works. At school, Jack daydreams about cool, pretty Jodie; evades seriously uncool, asthmatic Thomas; and enjoys sketching strange creatures inhabiting far-flung planets in outer space. When Thomas shows up with a celebratory cake on Jack’s otherwise uncelebrated 12th birthday, Jack can’t prevent Thomas from exploring his house until they stumble upon strange devices in the attic that Thomas—ignoring Jack’s frantic warning—can’t resist touching. A chain of events ensues that leads to actual outer space, landing the boys in more trouble than they can handle. Never fear: Allies, human and otherwise, are at hand to teach lessons in teamwork. (Human characters skew white.) At times, slapdash execution and jarring stylistic inconsistencies threaten to derail this series opener. The tone veers from subversively sardonic (as in William Sleator’s Interstellar Pig, 1984) to drolly whimsical (à la Douglas Adams), with echoes from the Star Wars franchise. If not in top form here, Wooding’s never dull; the fast-paced plot features his signature twists and turns.

Escapist fun for space-opera fans.