Space Race

by Sylvia Waugh

Overview

For almost as long as he can remember, Tom has lived happily in Belthorp. When his father breaks the unbelievable news that their family come from the planet Ormingat and must go back there, Tom is devastated. Apart from the wrench of leaving home, insuperable difficulties stand in their way as they try to reach their return ship.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781448193226
Publisher:	Penguin Random House Children's UK
Publication date:	09/30/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	339 KB
Age Range:	9 - 11 Years

About the Author

Sylvia Waugh lives in Gateshead. She taught English at a local school for many years but has now given up teaching to devote her time to writing. She has three grown up children and two grandsons.

Editorial Reviews

Sylvia Waugh, author of The Mennyms, about those delightful life-size rag dolls that lead almost-human lives, once again has created a world that shifts between the ordinary and extraordinary.
—The New York Times Book Review

Emily-Greta Tabourin

Though anchored by heartfelt feelings of love and loss, this diaphanous tale is unlikely to engage readers the way Waugh's more arrestingly premised "Mennyms" series has. Ever since he and his father Patrick moved to the village of Belthorp, Thomas has been telling his best friend Mickey that he arrived in a spaceship. He's not believed, of course, but it's true. Looking ahead to the future meeting of their two civilizations, the people of Ormingat gave Thomas a human body and sent him to be an English schoolboy for five years, part of a far larger mission to find out what makes Earthlings tick. His only clear memories being Earthly ones, Thomas is understandably upset when his father suddenly announces that it's time to go—and barely have they begun their journey to Edinburgh, where the spaceship is concealed, than Patrick mysteriously disappears in a violent traffic accident. Traumatized, Thomas winds up in a hospital: unidentified, unidentifiable, and with an uncertain future. What would have made a fine short story is padded out with extraneous detail and characters, plus a lengthy, pointless side jaunt for Patrick, who survives the accident by reflexively shrinking to ant size, has a few adventures, then shoots up to normal at the first sign of real danger. There is never a glimpse of the aliens' true form, or of the home planet for which Patrick so longs-nor do Thomas's mutinous feelings last long enough to develop into an inner crisis. Aimless, patchy, uninspired work from an author who has done much better. (Fiction. 11-13)

Kirkus Reviews