Astro Chimp by David Walliams. Illus. by Adam Stower

Unbelievably, this is bestselling author David Walliams's first graphic novel. Featuring full-colour, whole page illustrations, this takes the quirky humour of Walliams and makes it accessible to a wider audience than many of his text-heavy titles. Different format aside, his distinctive voice hits you from the get go: 'The rocket lifted off from the ground, and shot into the sky like a rocket. Oh, it's already a rocket. All right, then, it shot off into the sky faster than something else that was still really, really, really fast!'. You can tell while reading this that restraining his narration to a bare minimum was probably difficult for Walliams and I have to say it left me wanting this to be a longer, more fleshed out saga. However, what's there is still fantastic, humorous and infectiously fun to read. 

Chump the chimpanzee is off on a rocket to orbit the Earth. All he has to do is sit in his seat and NOT push the red button...What could go wrong? Everything, it seems. The rest of the story takes place 50 years later, when, after being frozen solid in space like an icicle, Chump is accidentally awoken by Dmitri, the one and only dog space pirate. And then ensues a crazy journey through space as they meet many other animals shot off into space by humans, each with a crazy origin story: giant fruit flies, a space police force made up of nine cloned cats and the two tortoises of the space emergency rescue team. Witty dialogue between the animals is the highlight as is the inanity of Chump and the pure madness of the whole thing. A smattering of toilet humour keeps everything ticking alone nicely. There is also an intriguing and brief history of animals in space at the end of the book as all the characters are based on real animals that were indeed blasted into space by humans. This one will be thoroughly enjoyed by all David Walliams fans, graphic novel aficionados, lovers of space travel stories and anyone who just likes a quick laugh at a silly tale.

Themes: Humour, Graphic Novel, Space Travel.

Nicole Nelson