Zita the Space Girl is Ben Hatke’s 2011 kids’ science fiction graphic novel about a young girl’s adventures on a distant world that she is transported to after clicking a mysterious button that she finds in the center of a meteor crater. It’s a pure delight. Zita’s friend Joseph is sucked through the portal first, and she bravely pursues him, and finds herself on a world that’s half Vaughn Bode, half Mos Eisley Cantina, populated by the motleyest assortment of robots, aliens, and beasts you could ever hope to meet. She quickly collects some powerful enemies — primarily a tentacle-beast assassin in the employ of the Scriptorians, the planet’s indigenous death-cultists, who engineered the kidnap of Joseph so that they could sacrifice him, fulfill an ancient prophecy and divert the doomsday asteroid that’s set to destroy their world in a matter of days.
But Zita also finds allies: the immensely strong, none-too-bright steveadore Strong Strong; a rascally rogue of a showman called Piper (he can lull his enemies to sleep with his high-tech tin whistle); a vengeance-minded flying battledroid called One; a giant mouse with a printer around its neck called Pizzicato, and a shaky, neurotic robot called Randy. Together, they must penetrate the badlands, fight off the minions of the Scriptorians, and rescue Joseph, and either avert or escape the asteroid that is hurtling toward them.
Creator Ben Hatke’s story fires on all cylinders — Zita’s adventures are funny, exciting, well-paced, and suspenseful. The art is fabulous, expressive and imaginative, and the characters are delightful. The book is recommended for grades 2-5, but I found it to be a great read-aloud for my four year old (I had to translate a lot of the dialogue on the fly, but that’s half the fun, and the visuals are so great that they fill in any blanks arising from missed verbal cues).
Our read of Zita was triggered by an early look at the sequel, Legends of Zita the Spacegirl, a great followup that comes out in September, and would be a great way to continue a summer reading adventure.