Norby and the Invaders

Janet and Isaac Asimov's Norby and the Invaders is a space adventure for 9 year olds about a boy and his robot racing to help a planet of small dragons under attack.

What happens

Norby is a mixed-up little barrel-shaped robot with four eyes, a built-in hat and a very high opinion of himself. He can float, he can talk to Jeff by touch, and he can zip through hyperspace. He also sings loudly and out of tune.

The book opens at a birthday party in a Manhattan flat. Jeff is a fourteen-year-old space cadet, his big brother Fargo is a secret agent, and one of the guests is a small green dragon called Zargl. Then Norby picks up a message from the far-off planet of Jamya. Jamya is being invaded, and the great robot who sent the message stops mid-sentence.

So Norby grabs Jeff, Zargl and Oola the pet, and they vanish.

What they find is properly creepy. The giant robots who look after Jamya are frozen where they stand. Floating grey creatures with tentacles are switching everything off. And then the Invaders start grabbing people.

Before long Jeff is dangling over an endless ocean, with no Norby and no idea where he is.

The star of the book might just be Oola. She's Jeff's all-purpose pet, a bit like a green cat, and she can change her body when she needs to. When Jeff's stuck in the water, she grows gills and flippers. Then she grows a snorkel out of the back of her neck so he can breathe too! It's such a brilliant idea, and your reader will probably want one.

There's plenty of fun alongside the danger. The Grand Dragon of Jamya is hugely grand and hugely rude, even when she's locked in a cage. She shouts at the Invaders, breathes fire at them and complains about the food.

Jeff is older than the reader here, but the story's pitched for younger ones. It's quick and clear, the chapters are packed with things happening, and when Jeff feels lost and lonely it's in a way any child can follow.

It's a good one for a reader who likes robots, aliens and a bit of peril. The danger in the opening chapters is mostly the stranded, far-from-home kind, though Oola does wound an Invader in an underwater scrap.

What to read next

Jeff and Norby have another mission in Norby and the Lost Princess, where the Admiral sends them off to look for a group of humans who might have been taken from Earth back in the Ice Age.