Phoenix

S. F. Said's Phoenix is a big space adventure for 9 year olds about a boy who wakes up to find he's burned a hole right through his bedsheet.

What happens

Lucky has dreamed that the stars were singing to him. When he wakes, the top sheet is black and crumbling, and smoke is still rising from it. He has no idea how it happened.

His mum does. She isn't even surprised. Within minutes she's stuffing his clothes into a kitbag and telling him they have to leave Phoenix, the moon he's lived on all his life.

There's a mysterious disc in the storeroom too, blacker than black, with twelve strange symbols round the edge. It belonged to the father Lucky has never known, and a man at the spaceport nearly has him arrested for carrying it.

Lucky's galaxy is at war. Humans and Aliens hate each other and the news is full of it. So when a V-shaped crack opens in the sky and something starts following them, the only ones who might help are the people he's been taught to fear. That's the crew of an Alien starship, with horns, hooves and eyes of fire (and a fierce girl called Bixa with glowing needles poking out of her hair).

It's a very exciting read, and a thoughtful one. Lucky starts out yelling "Get them all!" along with an angry crowd. Then he has to share a table with the people he was shouting about. You really feel him wobble as he works out who's actually dangerous.

His mum is brilliant too. She bakes brownies before dawn, then takes on a gang of grown men without breaking a sweat. Lucky can hardly believe what he's seeing, and neither will your reader.

It's worth saying that this is a war story and it doesn't hide it. There's news footage of a bombed world with bodies on stretchers. A crowd beats up a young Alien, and one man presses a gun to his head while people cheer. There's a rough bar with drinking and fist fights, and a lot of hatred aimed at the Aliens. It's tense for this shelf, so a sensitive reader might be better waiting a year or two. If your reader loves big adventures among the stars and can cope with some darkness, they'll be gripped.

What to read next

Want another boy who ends up among a crew of outlaws? Try Space Pirates: Stowaway. Sam's parents have gone missing in space, and the pirates on the far side of his planet might be his best hope. It's a lot sillier than Phoenix (space shanties and bowling included).