Lily & Kosmo in Outer Outer Space

by Jonathan Ashley

Overview

“Space opera charm in a modern kid–sized package.” – BCCB (starred review)

Explore outer outer space where dastardly villains await in this hilarious and inventive illustrated middle grade novel.

Brooklyn, Earth. 1949.

Lily Lupino is going to be an astronaut when she grows up. For now, she’ll have to settle for listening to science fiction programs on the radio. But when certified Spacetronaut Kosmo Kidd crash lands his wind-up rocket ship in Lily’s kitchen, it’s a chance Lily can’t pass up!

Mistaking Lily for a boy, Kosmo agrees to take her back to his floating treehouse in the stars, but it doesn’t take long for the other Spacetronauts to figure out that Lily is a girl. Kosmo has accidentally broken Spacetronaut Rule #1: NO WIMMEN ALOWD!

Banished to the far reaches of Outer Outer Space, Lily and Kosmo explore exotic alien worlds, meet a menagerie of colorful creatures, and tangle with the vilest villain in space, The Mean-Man of Morgo. But Lily’s greatest challenge is proving to her new Spacetronaut peers that a girl from Brooklyn can hold her own among the galaxy’s unruliest rascals.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781534413658
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers
Publication date:	12/03/2019
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	793,827
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.60(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	7 - 10 Years

About the Author

Jonathan Ashley is an author, playwright, concept artist, and filmmaker from Arizona. He studied fine art at Boston’s Museum School and filmmaking at NYU. His illustrations and designs have been featured in films, commercials, comic books, and puppet shows. He lives with his wife and daughter in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge, on the Brooklyn side.

Read an Excerpt

Lily & Kosmo in Outer Outer Space
The night Lily Lupino locked herself in the bathroom and cut off all her hair, a piece of space crash landed in her living room, in the form of a boy astronaut named Kosmo Kidd. He came by rocket, a small beat-up number that smashed through the ceiling while the Lupinos slept—well, not Lily. Lily was too mad to sleep. It started with a radio, looming over the living room like a cherrywood lighthouse, and the whine of a theremin, announcing the start of tonight’s episode of Trip Darrow: Star Pilot. . . .

  •  •  •  

Mr. Lupino was done listening to the evening news, and Mrs. Lupino’s favorite music program, Bandstand, didn’t come on until eight. Seven p.m. belonged to Lily Lupino, Astronaut in Training. For the fifth Thursday in a row, she sat cross-legged on the carpet, in the amber glow of the radio’s dial, grabbed the knob, and tuned in to join the baritone spaceman Trip Darrow, and his squeaky sidekick, Deirdre. Tonight, the five-part epic “Mutants on Moon Base Four” would reach its thrilling conclusion.

Editorial Reviews

Ashley's... imaginative debut is embellished with humorous illustrations, including fish-bowl helmets, a tree fort, and toy ray guns—all things from which dream adventures are made.

Booklist

This brilliantly silly story moves at a brisk pace with a lot of action, well-timed jokes, and detailed illustrations... 1940s space opera charm into a modern kid–sized package.

STARRED REVIEW BCCB

Ashley's... imaginative debut is embellished with humorous illustrations, including fish-bowl helmets, a tree fort, and toy ray guns—all things from which dream adventures are made.

Booklist

2018-06-25
In a universe full of authoritarian adults, the kids fight back.Aspiring astronaut Lily Lupino is stationed in 1949 Brooklyn, her dreams fueled by the Trip Darrow radio show. On the same night she cuts her hair off in a gesture of feminist rebellion, a real spaceship crashes into her kitchen, piloted by none other than Spacetronaut Kosmo Kidd. Armed with a British accent, Kosmo declares that Lily's 2-year-old brother, Alfie, is a secret space operative. Kosmo's mission is to free "Agent Argos" from the adult jailers (his parents) of "prison planet" Earth, so, thinking Lily is a boy, he takes both her and Alfie back to Fort Spacetronaut, "a tree-borne tin space shack" occupied by a ragtag group of girl-hating boys. As Lily stands strong to prove her worth, retrograde gender politics isn't the only thing plaguing the kidverse. It seems that kids in Outer Outer Space live in hiding, constantly fleeing the evil Morgonites, soldiers led by the Mean-Man of Morgo, an adult with a comically long mustache whose main mission is the Dejuvenation of mischief-making kids. But when Lily and Kosmo are captured, she learns the Mean-Man has a secret of his own….Readers don't need to know the radio serials this book is lampooning in order to enjoy the silliness and abundant wordplay; feisty Lily ably grounds the narrative's over-the-top shenanigans. Lily's white, Kosmo's black, and Outer Outer Space is a multicultural place.Humorous space opera with a distinct Dr. Who flavor. (Science fiction. 8-10)

Kirkus Reviews

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