Read George’s Cosmic Treasure Hunt free for 7 days. £7.99/month after - less than a paperback.
Lucy and Stephen Hawking's George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt is a space adventure for 8 year olds that opens with a shuttle launch and then pulls the rug out.
George is strapped into the commander's seat at T minus seven minutes. The access arm has gone. The hatches are sealed. Even if he hammered on them now there'd be nobody left outside to hear him.
Then someone shines a torch in his face and he wakes up. It was a dream. Bit mean, that.
The story proper starts at a fancy dress party, where the rule is to come as your favourite thing in space. George goes as the Man from Mars. Annie has come as dark matter, so she's in all black and insisting she's invisible.
The grown-ups are scientists and they have taken it far too seriously. One man is a microwave oven. Another keeps edging away from people, because he's the redshift. A third is wearing hula hoops with balls attached, because he's an entire solar system.
It's a brilliant party. Then Annie's dad Eric announces a new job hunting for life elsewhere in the solar system, starting with Mars, and that the family is moving to America.
"With that, George's universe imploded."
What follows is weeks of cardboard boxes and bare shelves, and then emails from Annie full of long stories about children George has never met. Until one email is different. She needs him. She has a COSMIC mission. Say nothing to the elderly loons.
One thing to know going in. Every so often the story stops and you get a proper page of science. Why Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system. How light stretches out on its way across the Universe until it's the faint hum left over from the Big Bang.
Some children will read every word of those. Others will flick past to find out what Annie is up to. Both are fine and the story still holds together.
The text looks back on an earlier adventure that ended with his friend's computer exploding. Your reader won't be lost, but they will notice they've come in partway through.
And the sad part is properly sad. The best friend moving abroad. The house next door emptying out. Letters that arrive and say nothing. If you've got a child who's been left behind by a friend, that stretch might land quite close to home.
If they finish it still wondering what it would actually be like out there, The Lion of Mars is set in a small settlement on Mars where the children have never once seen Earth.
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.
