Tag Alice Primmer

The World’s Worst Alien Fights Back

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The World’s Worst Alien Fights Back
Alice Primmer, illustrated by Fred Blunt
Walker Books

Having created planet Earth for a school project, eleven year old Sky left it with a lot of problems – war, climate change, corruption and more. Now though, she must revisit Earth and clear up the mess so that she can get a pass grade from her teacher.

No easy task as she has only a day (3 weeks in Earth time) but at least she has one friend, Zana Jackson, on Earth, and so it’s to Zana’s bedroom that she returns, only to find her fast asleep. Four hours later though. both girls are awake and ready for school. Once there she receives a somewhat hostile welcome from the head teacher but Zana smooths things over.

After school that day Sky accompanies Zana and some others to a cricket match against another school, one that turns into a fight.

Before long, despite getting clonked on the head by a ball, Sky finds herself with an apology to make and several fights to stop.

However, one fight leads to another. So, what about a peace-making plan instead? Hmm! Several more fights later, Zana suggests apologies followed by peace talks. Could this be the answer? Or would pillow fighting be better?

Bursting with humour, added to by Fred Blunt’s black and white illustrations, this second story in the series is a great read for those gaining confidence as solo readers as well as a fun read aloud for KS1 classes.

The World’s Worst Alien

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The World’s Worst Alien
Alice Primmer, illustrated by Fred Blunt
Walker Books

This is a slice of life as lived and narrated by Sky, an alien student who has somehow created planet Earth for her school project. However, rather than the dinosaurs she hoped to find living thereon, it’s the age of humans and they appear to be doing a very good job of ruining the entire planet. Bang goes the good grades she’s desperately wanting. Sky decides to change her form and spend time on Earth, in in order to sort things out, without she hopes, having to do too much work before returning from whence she came.

On arriving in London, she experiences cold for the first time and the attire she’s wearing is modelled on the gear worn by YouTube influencers and so totally inappropriate for the climate. But as well as having no name and no place to live, she has no clothes to change in to and off she goes to school straight to a year six classroom where the other pupils are led to believe she’s from Antarctica There she makes friends (kind of) with a girl named Zana to whom she confides that she wants to be an influencer on You Tube without having the first clue about the topic of her videos. Zana invites her new friend to stay the night with her, telling her mother that she’s an exchange student but the school forgot to book her accommodation.

From then on things get progressively more crazy and chaotic: there are unfair doings going on around her (giraffes to release from the zoo) as well as local environmental causes to become involved with.

A funny story that looks at humans from the perspective of an outsider: what though will Sky’s impressions of we Earthlings be by the time she’s completed her project? Alice Primmer’s debut children’s novel gives readers plenty to ponder on, laugh at and talk about, and there’s a plethora of Fred Blunt’s zany illustrations to accompany the silly situations Sky et al find themselves in.