Pilot Huxley & the Planet Arpros

Dan McGuiness (author/illustrator)

Omnibus Books, Scholastic, Australia: March 2011; 60pp

ISBN: 9781862918504

Genres: adventure, humour, graphic novel, science fiction

Pilot and Huxley find themselves back on Earth but the year is 3047. How are they to get back to their own time? By saving the planet from an evil alien, it seems – which is, of course, easier said than done.

Dan McGuiness' cartoon-style illustrations make it easy for those unfamiliar with his work to assume this is a glorified comic book but this is far from the case. Visual readers will appreciate the often surreal images that support and expand upon the narrative. The story has all the logic of a dream (or nightmare) – in other words, very little. Children will delight in this, in the way just about anything can happen – and often does; the only limits are McGuiness' imagination.

Plenty of 'gross' ideas – public transport that involves travelling in the stomach of a large bird and being vomited back out, for example – will appeal to the humour of young boys, especially. The vocabulary is sufficiently challenging to appeal to more advanced readers as well as those who simply avoid text-heavy novels.

Good fun and especially valuable for the gifted child who doesn't enjoy reading but does, for example, enjoy video games!

Other work: DM illustrated Buzz Off! by Randel Abdel-Fattah