Herbert’s Wormhole-Peter Nelson and Rohitash Rao

Herbert’s Wormhole
Peter Nelson and Rohitash Rao
Harper, Jun 2009, $12.99
ISBN: 9780061688683

His parents have rooted for their ten year old son Alex to win his Alien-Slayer 2 game so they can have some peace; he promised them that once he was victorious he would spend the rest of the summer outside. Thus when he wins, his parents rejoice as he has been driving them crazy over the first half of the summer.

His parents send their six-grader to their brilliant neighbor Herbert Skewg, who shows the preadolescent his latest invention that creates a wormhole shortcut through the space-time continuum. The pair journeys a century into the future to find their hometown run by the kind six tentacle G’Daliens who need a hair make over. The humans and the G’Daliens welcome the time travelers in a friendly way though the latter’s diction sounds somewhat Aussie. Herbert and Alex soon become embroiled with preventing a scheme to take over by an outraged G’Dalien Gor-Don who was rejected by a human woman.

Filled with numerous drawings on almost every page by Rohitash Rao, HERBERT’S WORMHOLE is an enjoyable older elementary school science fiction with a sort of youngster’s smirk to the fun story line. Fast-paced once the dynamic duo meet the G’Daliens and the future humans, young readers will enjoy Peter Nelson's exciting futuristic thriller though at times the illustrations distract from the plot especially when they depict something different than the prose on the same page. Still this is a fun romp that will have the audience traveling back to the future with Alex and Herbert.

Harriet Klausner