Overview and Outcomes:

This is a 15 session Literary Leaf for the illustrated novel, Cakes in Space which starts with children making inferences and predictions using the fabulous illustrations. Children go on to create character descriptions, retrieving evidence from the text and identifying vocabulary using this to start to examine the effect of particular words and phrases.

Synopsis of Text:

Astra and her family are relocating: not within the country and not even within orbit but to begin a new life on a planet called Nova Mundi. It will take one hundred and ninety-nine years to get there and so they - and the many others who are going too - will be frozen in time in sleep- pods until the robots wake their passengers up. Shortly before being sent to sleep, Astra goes in search of a bite to eat. This comes in the form of a delicious chocolate biscuit, created by Nom-O-Tron…Astra wonders what else Nom-O-Tron might be able to create and requests the most amazing, super-fantastic cake ever! But before she can see what Nom-O-Tron produces, her dad finds her and she is sent to her pod to begin her epic sleep as they journey onwards… Except things don’t really go according to plan. Astra wakes up and soon realises that something has gone horribly wrong: nobody else is awake! With the exception of a friendly little robot names Pilbeam, she is alone. Pilbeam informs her that there are still over 99 years to go! It turns out that Nom-O-Tron hasproduced a cake …lots of cakes actually and they appear to be eating each other and one even attempts to eat Astra. But why? How have these cakes taken on a life of their own? And what will become of Astra while the humans around her sleep, frozen in time?

Links:

Space, space-travel, aliens