Read Frank Einstein and the Space-Time Zipper free for 7 days. £7.99/month after - less than a paperback.
Jon Scieszka's Frank Einstein and the Space-Time Zipper is a funny science adventure for 8 year olds about a boy genius who has accidentally lost his grandpa in outer space.
Frank's newest invention is meant to travel faster than light. Before it's ready, Grampa Al stumbles into it. Now he's stuck somewhere near a star ninety-seven light-years away, and Frank has to fix the machine and bring him home.
His best friends Watson and Janegoodall pitch in (after pancakes, obviously). His two robots help too, eventually. Klink is small, clever and extremely huffy about being locked in the bathroom overnight. Klank is big, kind and would very much like to know what lasagna is.
Across town, Frank's rival T. Edison wants to reach other planets for one reason. Money. His lab partner, Mr Chimp, is far cleverer than he is and has a secret plan of his own.
The science is real and it's everywhere. Light-years, gravity, why nothing can outrun light, Albert Einstein's idea that space and time can bend. Frank shows it all with a rubber sheet, some marbles and a giant zipper. It's funny how much of it actually makes sense by the end of the scene!
There's a surprise chapter about Ham, the real chimpanzee who went up in a rocket in 1961, told in short, punchy lines. Mr Chimp turns out to be his grandson.
The style is quick and chatty, with lots of sound effects and an alarm clock that sets off a whole wall of gears just to open the blinds. Watson's wisecracks keep it light.
This is the sixth and last Frank Einstein book. A newcomer will catch up quickly, but there are plenty of jokes about earlier inventions that went badly wrong (poor Klank has been blown to bits, chopped up and had his head explode).
If you've got a reader who takes things apart to see how they work, or asks "but WHY?" all day long, Frank is their kind of hero.
To see where the robots came from, go back to Frank Einstein and the Antimatter Motor, which starts with a thunderstorm and a robot built from a toaster and a vacuum cleaner.
A library hand-picked by an English teacher, delivered through a calm, ad-free app. If your child already loves reading, we keep up.
7-day free trial. Then £7.99/month.
