Franny K. Stein 5 – Frantastic Voyage

Jim Benton's Frantastic Voyage is a very silly, very squelchy Franny K. Stein story for 7 year olds in which a mad scientist has to shrink herself and walk up her dog's nose.

What happens

Franny's lab assistant is Igor, a dog who's part poodle, part beagle and part some kind of weaselly thing. He means well. He also gets things wrong quite a lot (one mix-up pulled Franny's face clean off).

So when she starts her most dangerous project yet, she wants him out of the way. Her answer is a TV of his very own. It works brilliantly. Igor sits and stares for hours, then copies everything he sees, from bubble gum adverts to films about kings.

The project is a Doomsday Device no bigger than a gumball. It's there to blow up the lab if her inventions ever fall into the wrong hands. Then Igor, eyes glued to the screen, eats it along with his grapes. And he's started the timer.

That leaves Franny less than an hour. Her plan is to shrink right down, get sniffed up Igor's nose and walk to his stomach with a screwdriver. What could go wrong?

This is the fifth Franny K. Stein story, going by the series page at the back, and it stands on its own. Each book starts afresh at the pink house on Daffodil Street, so your reader won't feel lost if they start here.

The gross bits are the whole point. Igor's nose is a slippery, boogery cave. His stomach is a sea of half-chewed pizza, hot dog and dog food gravy, with a doll's foot floating past. If you've got a reader who shrieks with delight at anything disgusting, they'll be in heaven.

It's also very funny about telly. Igor wants everything the adverts show him, and Franny ends up flicking through his channels from inside his tummy, hunting for the one advert that might save the day. Who knew the remote control could matter so much?

The chapters are super short and every title is a terrible pun, so it whizzes along. It's easily one sitting on the sofa.

What to read next

If they'd like more of Franny and Igor's double act, try The Invisible Fran. Franny drinks a potion that makes her invisible and creeps round her classroom whispering ideas into her classmates' ears, and Igor has his own close call with a hungry giant chameleon.