Norby and the Court Jester

Janet and Isaac Asimov's Norby and the Court Jester is a comic space adventure for 9 year olds about a mixed-up robot on a planet that's mad about toys.

What happens

Jeff Wells is a space cadet who has just failed his Unified Field Theory exam. Norby is his small barrel-shaped robot, and he's been meddling with every computer in Space Command. So when Jeff heads off for spring break on the faraway planet Izz, the admiral decides to come too.

Before they've even landed, Norby picks up a faint telepathic call for help from Pera, the princess's little robot. Then he crashes the ship into a vegetable lorry outside the palace. (Guess who has to pick up all the vegetables?)

Izz is great fun to read about. Everyone has to wear braids except the royal family, so bald Admiral Yobo has had his new moustache braided by a surgeon. Queens rule, kings don't. And the police can dunk you in the Pool of Plurf, which leaves you smelling for a month.

But something's wrong. Pera has vanished. The queen's face keeps twitching strangely on the planet's TV. Tiny mistakes are creeping into the computers that run everything. And the chief suspect is Ing, an old enemy who's now the court jester, the star of the Royal Toy and Game Fair and somehow the court scientist too.

The best thing about it is Norby himself. He's cheeky and bossy and always sure he knows best. The little chats he has with Jeff inside their heads are very funny.

A couple of things to be aware of. This is a later book in the series, so it drops you straight into friendships and old enemies from earlier adventures. It also has an old-fashioned streak. Three men make eyes at a beautiful young singer called Xeena, and the jokes about it feel quite dated now. Jeff is a cadet, so a good bit older than the shelf this sits on.

If your reader loves clever robots, silly planets and a villain in a jester's hat, they'll still have a great time. It suits a confident reader who likes their science fiction light and daft.

What to read next

For the adventure where Jeff and Norby first go searching for the people the Others took from Earth long ago, try Norby and the Lost Princess.