Mission Ziffoid

by Michael Rosen

When a boy crash-lands on Planet Ziffoid, zillions of miles from Earth, the good news is that he meets a bunch of aliens who love to play soccer. The bad news is that they want to use him as the ball. What will happen next? Will it be good news? Or bad?

Genres: Aliens, Childrens, Space

24 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1999

About the author

Michael Rosen, a recent British Children’s Laureate, has written many acclaimed books for children, including WE'RE GOING ON A BEAR HUNT, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, and I’M NUMBER ONE and THIS IS OUR HOUSE, both illustrated by Bob Graham. Michael Rosen lives in London.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[The Brothers · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is one of those "that's good... no that's bad" kind of books where something happens and you or the narrator or whoever says that's good/bad and the character contradicts you and gives another snippet of the story. An okay vehicle for story-telling, but gets old real fast if you have to read the book over and over.

Great illustrations.

[Jennifer Burke]

This fictional story is dialogue between two friends who are discussing a trip to planet Ziffoid. Everything in this story is not what it seems!

Tags: Aliens, Dialogue

I could use this book to teach about dialogue. I can also use it to teach that it is never wise to jump to conclusions.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

B'ville impulse.

Gosh Rosen was prolific. He sure had fun adapting this classic tale (usually considered Chinese, but also seen in Fortunately).

[Suzanne Lorraine Kunz Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love how this book shows that we can never really tell if a situation is good or bad because we can never really tell the ultimate circumstances of that situation.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the style in which this book was written. It has a good-bad flow to it that had all of us laughing out loud.
Sample: My brother has a space ship with 4 mega blast booster rockets. Wow, that's good! No, that's bad. his spaceship exploded on the way to Mars. Gosh, that's bad. No, it's good. His ejector seat saved him. That's good. etc.

[Mckinley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Along the lines of the Chinese farmer's son of good and bad outcomes for everything. This one is very accessible.

[Cara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A boy telling the story of how his brother went into space and brought back some 'friends'.