MS Review – Astronautical! – graphic novel

Stormie, Brooklin. Astronautical! NP: Annick Press 2025.

Guide to Categories – MS Review – review of books for older elementary-aged and middle school-aged children

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Summary

A fun and twisty middle-grade graphic novel debut about an intergalactic rescue mission, for fans of Steven Universe and Zita the Spacegirl.

A century ago, planet Zephyr exploded under mysterious circumstances. Ever since, generations have been living out their lives on the remaining floating planet chunks.

Brothers Max and Lari and their father Captain Cherryhair deliver goods around the galaxy on their spaceship—until their father is suddenly kidnapped by the fox minions of Cynosure, the Planet Breaker.

Luckily, a couple of stars with a ferryboat business offer to help the brothers on their rescue mission. But when Max sustains a life-threatening black hole injury, little brother Lari finally has to step up and take care of his chronically in-charge big brother.

Will Lari be able to figure out the secret of the broken planet and face the powerful Cynosure? Can he save not only his brother, but the people of Zephyr too?

Astronautical! is packed with quirky characters and exciting adventures, where wooden mast ships sail through space (totally not real science), whales are spaghettified by black holes (kind of real science), and comets travel through time (absolutely real science).

Purchase Astronautical! on Amazon – https://amzn.to/4o1JeQ6

My MS Review

Astronautical! is a sci-fi graphic novel for middle schoolers. Stormie included humor that will appeal to this age-group. I really appreciate that she closed the book with a note on the “real science” and “not-so-real science” in the book. It may spur some to do further research. 

I did have a problem at times following the plot line, but for the most part older elementary and middle school readers should be able to understand what is going on. Because it is a graphic novel, I found it to be a fast read which may appeal to the more reluctant reader. 

The illustrations are cartoon-like and lend themselves well to the graphic novel presentation. 

There was nothing in Astronautical! to prevent it from being added to a K-12 Christian school library. 

I received a complimentary copy of Astronautical!. This is my honest review.

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