Blast off on an adventure with the Space Cadets! From beloved children's author-illustrator Alex T. Smith, the bestselling creator of Claude and How Winston Delivered Christmas, comes a funny and fast-paced adventure through space!Filled with out-of-this world illustrations on every page, Astrid and the Space Cadets: Race from Planet Peril! is perfect for fans of Grimwood and Bad Guys, and for kids who are ready to read by themselves.Astrid Atomic and her best friends, the Space Cadets, have been given an important mission from the Chief – to retrieve the special trophy for the Supersonic Saturn Race! Tonight they'll have to fly under boiling hot lava waterfalls, zoom through fields of flaming flowers and sneak past a big, toothy, scary space monster! And things go from bad to worse when they realise that the naughty Dr Boris Uranus on their tail. Will they get to the trophy before time runs out?Don't miss Astrid and the gang's first adventure in Astrid and the Space Cadets: Attack of the Snailiens!

Astrid and the Space Cadets made me BEAM with joy, full of OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD characters and illustrations., Astrid and the Space Cadets! is just the kind of book I would have loved to read as a child. Alex’s wonderful witty writing is full of humour, adventure and I adore his fabulous character creations – The Snailiens! – genius!, [A] hilarious book for readers beginning to discover what reading for pleasure feels like. This is a cosmic bundle of space fuelled giggles!, Perfect for children who are just beginning to enjoy books independently . . . Astrid and the Space Cadets is imagination at its best.

Alex T. Smith has drawn and written stories since he could hold a pencil. After considering several career options (space traveller, cake maker, professional rabbit), Alex decided to train to do the job he’d wanted to do since he was five – an illustrator specializing in the world of children’s publishing.Alex graduated with a first-class degree in Illustration in 2006 and also won second place in the Macmillan Prize for Illustration in his final year. Since then Alex has gone on to work for a wide variety of clients, not just in the publishing industry, as well as writing and illustrating his own picture books, many of which have won prizes and have been read on TV during the Bedtime Hour on the CBeebies channel. Alex is also the creator of the bestselling Claude series for early readers, which appear in their own TV series on Disney Junior. His much-loved How Winston Delivered Christmas, How Winston Came Home from Christmas, The Grumpus and the witty retelling of The Twelve Days of Christmas, or Grandma is Overly Generous are all set to become future Christmas classics.His series Astrid and the Space Cadets, filled with black and white illustrations, is an out of this world adventure series, perfect for readers who are ready to read by themselves.When not working, Alex enjoys doodling in his sketchbook, reading, people-watching and eavesdropping. He is also a big fan of cake and a nice cup of tea. He lives with and under the constant ‘supervision’ of his canine companions in Warwickshire.