Cosmic Creatures: The Friendly Firecat

Tom Huddleston's Cosmic Creatures: The Friendly Firecat is a gentle space adventure for 5 year olds about a girl who rescues a hurt baby firecat in the desert.

What happens

Charlie is on holiday with her little brother Maki, visiting their Aunt Letitia on the planet Vela. Charlie flies the little Star Eagle down herself (with Random the robot ready to take over if anything goes wrong).

Aunt Letitia runs a brand new desert town called Firecat Plains. She can't wait to show them the reason it got its name. Hundreds of electric-blue cats come pouring out of a canyon, racing across the sand like a river. Who wouldn't want to see that?

Then something scares the herd. The cats stampede back, rocks crash down on the ship and the power goes dead. So Charlie and Random set off across the desert to get help.

On the way they find a firekitten dragging herself along with a stone stuck in her paw. Charlie calls her Sunlight and tucks her inside her jacket. It turns out a ship full of animal rustlers is catching firecats to sell, and Sunlight's mum is locked in their cage.

There's a rustler boy called Taika too, who gets left behind when Random scares the crew off with a VERY convincing monster roar. Charlie and Taika don't agree about much. He thinks the cats don't belong to anyone. She thinks they belong to themselves!

It's lovely watching Sunlight win him round. She purrs at him, nuzzles him and licks his face at the worst possible moments. Random is super funny as well. When his batteries run low he starts talking total nonsense about beetle soup.

There's a bit of peril along the way, with some quicksand and a spell locked up on the rustlers' ship. But it all stays quite cosy, and the stunned firecats aren't hurt. And why are they called firecats when they're bright blue? (You'll have to read it to find out.)

If you've got an animal-mad child who'd quite like a robot for a best friend, this is a very sweet one to share at bedtime.

What to read next

If this one goes down well, Charlie and Random stay closer to home in The Runaway Rumblebear. A very small, very loud creature keeps raiding the settlers' food, and Charlie has to keep him hidden.