Synopsis
An explosive, highly charged, and hilarious middle-grade adventure from Mark Haddon, acclaimed author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.
From the moment that Jim and his best friend, Charlie, bug the staff room and overhear two of their teachers speaking to each other in a secret language, they know there's an adventure on its way.
But what does "spudvetch" actually mean, and why do Mr. Kidd's eyes flicker with fluorescent blue light when Charlie says it to him? Perhaps Kidd and Pearce are bank robbers talking in code. Perhaps they're spies. Perhaps they are aliens. Whatever it is, Jimbo and Charlie are determined to find out.
There really is an adventure on its way. A nuclear-powered, one-hundred-ton adventure with reclining seats and a buffet car. And as it gathers speed and begins to spin out of control, it can only end one way . . . with a BOOM!
Publishers Weekly
Haddon (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) has reworked his out-of-print 1992 novel Gridzbi Spudvetch! into a delightful crowd pleaser. Jimbo lives in a small flat with his hardworking mother, unemployed father, and disdainful older sister, Becky, who spends her time with a loser of a biker boyfriend. But Jimbo’s life takes a turn away from the dull when he and his adventurous friend Charlie plant walkie-talkies in the staff lounge at school. They overhear the teachers using an unintelligible language, entangling them in a farfetched and otherworldly mystery (“There was an adventure on its way, a nuclear-powered, one-hundred-ton adventure with reclining seats and a snack trolley”). Charlie is apparently abducted and Jimbo finds an unusually courageous ally in Becky, leading to a cross-country motorbike chase, the cracking of an alien code, intergalactic travel via a “Weff-Beam,” and a trip to Plonk, a planet both familiar and strange. Jimbo and Charlie are excellent foils for each other, and Haddon’s madcap escapade is fast-paced, pitch perfect, and utterly unbelievable—yet not a word will be doubted. Ages 10-up. (May)