The Baby Brother From Outer Space!

Pamela Butchart's The Baby Brother From Outer Space is a gloriously silly school story for 7 year olds about a baby who might just be an alien.

What happens

Izzy, Jodi, Zach and Maisie have seen a LOT of weird stuff at their school. So when Mrs Akbar brings her baby, Samir, into assembly and all the teachers go gooey, they're straight on the case.

Samir's big brother Haroon, in Year 5, is miserable. He's convinced the baby is an alien. The baby babbles away at night when everyone's asleep. And ever since he arrived, Mum seems to be under his control.

The evidence piles up fast. The scariest deputy head in the school starts giggling. Gary Petrie suddenly scores a goal. The baby spells MARS with his alphabet blocks, gobbles up seconds of the school's revolting shepherd's pie and won't let go of his "phone". Is the mothership on its way?

Reading it is like having Izzy tell you all about it at the school gate. Everything important is in CAPITALS. Maisie faints at every scare (she once fainted head first into her shepherd's pie), and the gang hold their secret meetings in The Den, a cupboard under the stairs with a kettle that doesn't work.

Underneath the jokes there's a lovely thread about Haroon feeling left out since the baby came along. If you've got a child who has just become a big brother or sister, they'll probably recognise some of this. It's handled so kindly.

It's short, it's daft and it has a proper laugh in almost every scene. Nappies feature more than once, so be ready for some giggling.

What to read next

The gang have had plenty of other adventures. Izzy even mentions the time the dinner ladies turned into demons, and that one is Attack of the Demon Dinner Ladies, where somebody has put eyeballs in the water jug.