No-one writes like Frank Cottrell Boyce, and readers who enjoy this will also love his books Cosmicand The Astounding Broccoli Boy.Jamie Thomson’s Dark Lordbooks are also very funny, and just as good on human nature as is My Brother is a Superheroby David Solomons. classic Cottrell Boyce: zany, lay-out-loud funny and with a very strong emotional heart. - INIS reading guide When Prez Mellows is forced to leave his grandfather (who keeps forgetting who he is) to go to the Children’s Temporary Accommodation, he becomes completely mute.

When Prez meets Sputnik, a small loud alien, he doesn't really know what to expect but is horrified to hear that Sputnik is here to save the earth from imminent destruction and Prez's task is to come up with a list of ten things that make our planet worth saving. You would think this would be straightforward, easy even, but Sputnik's values are a little different to ours. Poor Prez is further hindered by his own personal circumstances and the fact that everyone else thinks that Sputnik is a dog. He has also created a fantastic trilogy, writtenwith his trademark wit, warmth and sense of story, based upon Ian Fleming's novel, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, comprising Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Race Against Time and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Over the Moon. This one was different. It is whimsical and silly and appealing without being excessively scatalogical in it's delivery. It is meaningful without being overly taxing. It's smart and a little odd in the way that Oliver Jeffers' picture books are smart and odd. And the ending is lovely, the whole reverse Big Bang of it all a great comfort without succumbing to habits of magical thought. The hard, real stuff is not reversed or anything. It's not erased from our fragile "remembrances." But it is tempered by a gentle inquisitiveness about the world we live in. Last night my 10 year old son and I were reading the adventures of Sputnik till it was nearly midnight (well it was Friday, so no school or work the following day). My children and I love Frank Cottrell Boyce's books, they are so sooo kind and compassionate, humorous and you also learn a rather surprising lot of information, like Saints in Millions, famous painters and their masterpieces in Framed, space staff in Cosmic, first animal orbiting the Earth in this book. It was a great idea to make Prez see Sputnik as someone else rather than just a dog. I liked the subtle reference Michael Morpurgo's book Escape From Shangri-La, where a girl helps her granddad escape from a nursing home called Shangri-La too. If children read that book, then it is nice for them to recognise the familiar reference, if they didn't read it, it is still stands strong on its own, I think.But Prez soon finds himself having to defend the family from the chaos and danger unleashed by Sputnik, as household items come to life - like a TV remote that fast-forwards people: 'Anyone can do it, it's just that people don't read the instructions properly'; and a toy lightsaber that entertains guests at a children's party, until one of them is nearly decapitated by it - and Prez is going to have to use his voice to explain himself. The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too. My son, who is six years old, experienced such a loss for the first time last fall. Knowing what we know about the inevitability of such experiences did not make it any easier for the adults in his life to help him through the pain of it. He is only just a little body, after all. How? When a list of ten marvelous things that makes this world unique is written down. And as the book says, the most wild summer is drawn out as Prez and Sputnik set out to do just that. There are some content notes hidden in the spoiler tag. I recommend you don't peek unless you are looking to avoid a specific tender spot.

Sputnik is an imaginary friend there to help our main character Prez explore the complex universe of mankind. classic Cottrell Boyce: zany, lay-out-loud funny and with a very strong emotional heart. ( INIS reading guide) Shortlisted for the 2017 Carnegie Medal and selected for the Tom Fletcher Book Club, Sputnik's Guide to Life on Earth by Frank Cottrell-Boyce is an adventure about the Blythes: a big, warm, rambunctious family who live on a small farm and sometimes foster children. Now Prez has come to live with them. But, though he seems cheerful and helpful, he never says a word.

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Very briefly, this book is about a boy named Prez who could stay silent for England, he doesn't talk a lot at all (it's never said outright but it is hinted through the narrative that he has a form of autism), and his grandfather who has been taken away for reasons that are fairly unknown to us. Prez is now living with this adopted family who are taking him in temporarily for the summer and at the same time, an alien, that has taken on the form of a dog whose name is Sputnik Mellows, has come down from outer space and told Prez that the planet is in danger and if they don't find ten things worth keeping on Planet Earth in the next summer, the planet will be shrunk. So not all character development was that commendable but some of it really was so if you like character development in books, don't immediately cast this book aside because it has some!