Harvey Drew and the Bling Bots by Cas Lester

Hot Key Books, 2014. ISBN 9781471402487
(Age: 9+) Higly recommended. 'Multi-coloured chunder' and 'speckled vomit' are just 2 of the outcries that will get children reading in this novel! 11 year old Harvey Drew is the space captain of the grossest rubbish collecting space ship known as the Toxic Spew. Between a crazy alien crew, weird looking pizza and 'sucking up gloop', children are sure to find something hilarious going on. The crew receive a distress call in regards to a load of Techno-tium, the most valuable metal in the universe, and the adventure begins.
Boys will be attracted to the grossness of a rubbish truck come space ship and the rib-tickling antics of the crew. Highly recommended for independent readers aged 9+, it is a quick moving and funny story that is also accompanied by black and white illustrations. Throughout the story, the narrator adds their own funny comments including how behind people on Earth are. It would make a great class novel too comparing what we know about space with the fiction of space.
Kylie Kempster