SPACEBOY

Dreaming of escape from cruel grown-ups, two orphaned children share an out-of-this-world adventure in the space race’s early days in this offering by British actor Walliams.

Gazing longingly at the sky one starry night, 12-year-old Ruth sees a flying saucer crash in a nearby field and excitedly races out with her three-legged rescue pooch, Yuri (named for the Soviet cosmonaut). She makes contact with a short, silent figure clad in shiny foil and a tall, oblong helmet. As it turns out, Spaceboy (or Kevin, as he’s really called) doesn’t come from all that far away, and, also being orphaned and mistreated, he shares her dream of getting away. Unfortunately, both dog and children are instead swept up by vigilant authorities and hustled off to Cape Canaveral (with stops at the Top-Secret Secret Base and the White House for savage digs at the military and political classes) in hopes of giving the country’s fledgling space program a boost over their Soviet rivals. Frequent changes of typeface size and weight in the narrative, matched with Stower’s abundant comical cartoons and caricatured portraits, lend this work the look of farce. But what with the satiric edge cutting deep enough to draw blood, even younger readers may find themselves wincing at times as they root for the underdogs, canine and otherwise. Spaceboy and a few others are rare exceptions in an otherwise light-skinned cast.

A soaring escapade, heavy axe-grinding aside.