They came from Planet Zabalooloo!

Three aliens from Zabalooloo have different characteristics: Zoron tells the story, and he says he is very clever;  Bazoo is so strong; and Zob gets over-excited and does crazy wiggle-woggle dancing. Their space ship has space biscuits and a party area with balloons, and they are on an epic adventure to bring something special back from Earth with their supersonic sucker with shrinker-nozzle. First they search for something big: “wow wee – an elephant!” They creep up on it with the supersonic sucker, but Bazoo wants a selfie first. The elephant wakes up and makes a big-size bottom-trumpet sound, and the smell is so awful that they change their minds. Similar mishaps occur when they try to capture a medium size thing, a lion, and this time it’s Zob’s wiggle-woggle dancing that wakes the lion and they run away before it can try to catch them.  A small-size duck looks more promising, but is so cute that this time it’s Zob who both wants a funny photo and does crazy dancing- will that frighten the duck? No , it eats their space biscuits from their hands, poses for a photo, and charms them so much that they can’t bear to take it away, and they go back into space, rejoicing in their successful mission: they have taken a selfie with a  duck…

Sean Taylor has written more than 40 books for young readers, including When a Monster is Born, which is also fun, and he knows what will appeal. The words are very funny, and there is the clear issue of the relative sizes of the things that the aliens want to capture. Kate Hindley has illustrated his work before in Don’t call me Choochie Poo! and her style suits the whackiness of the story, with little touches like the elephant blushing when he makes his bottom sound adding to the fun for younger children and KS1.