Tuesday 20 August 2019

"Life on Mars" by Jon Agee (Scallywag Press)

David Bowie once asked about it, and we've become increasingly obsessed about it too ever since the Curiosity Rover started making its trepidacious way across the rocky surface.

"Life on Mars" by Jon Agee is a brilliantly fun book that begins in the not too distant future, when a young astronaut decides to visit the red planet to answer the question once and for all.

So is there life on Mars? He brings a box of cupcakes just in case, but after a long wander around the (seemingly) barren landscape, the astronaut loses heart.

His friends were right, there's just nothing there.

But we, the readers, are in on the gag as a huge martian creature silently and surreptitiously follows the astronaut as he wanders, gets lost, then finally relocates his spacecraft - and his box of cupcakes, and jets off for home.

But hang on a minute, there's a twist...!

We, of course, won't tell you what it is - but it's a brilliant little moment and once again it's great to see Jon's titles coming back into print courtesy of Scallywag, this is a short but sweet little book perfect for bedtime astronautics.

Sum this book up in a sentence: A fab space adventure with a twist in the tale right at the end.

"Life on Mars" by Jon Agee is out now, published by Scallywag Press (kindly supplied for review).