Steve Antony’s Queen has been round the United Kingdom, the whole world twice and now she and her little corgi are off to explore the solar system. After the success of The Queen’s Hat, the Queen’s Handbag and The Queen’s Present, the author and illustrator Steve Antony returns with a new children’s book in the series The Queen’s Lift-off. Though, I am doubtful about the future of monarchy in the country, I remain certain that this educational and enjoyable series will be loved for years to come.
The Queen was in her palace helping the young prince and princess build a toy rocket when the rocket took off and she found herself orbiting Mercury, flying past Venus, taking a small step on the Moon and visiting in a flash the rest of the planets in our solar system. She was suddenly sucked in a black hole but an alien spaceship found her and beamed her back to Earth just in time to have her tea. Dressed in a bumblebee-colored dress with her black bag on her shoulder followed by more and more spacemen and an alien butler on every page, the Queen has an unexpected and hilarious adventure in space.
I always enjoy Antony’s detailed drawings and this time I loved the black and white pages with no other colour apart from few hues of yellow. It is,indeed, unconventional for children’s book and captivating for little bookworms. Besides, it is interesting that if they look hard enough, the young readers can spot Laika, the first dog in space, Sputnik, the first artificial satellite launched by the Soviets in 1957 and even the famous face on the surface of Mars, a morphological feature that for long the poor quality of Mars pictures along with wild people’s imagination interpreted it as a humanoid face construction on the red planet. A lovely book for your children’s bookcase.
Author & illustrator: Steve Antony
Age: 3-7 years old
Publisher: Hodder Children’s Books
Here you can see the author’s sketchpad after the release of the first two books of the series The Queen’s Hat and the Queen’s Handbag :