Good Reading for Kids caught up with FIONA KATAUSKAS to discuss her book Hi From Outer Space, a laugh-out-loud fish-out-of-water story.
What can you tell us about Alex and her journey in Hi From Outer Space?
Alex loves to write and draw comics and her dream is to win the National Young Cartoonist Competition. First, though, she has to find the right topic and that’s proving more difficult than she thought. When she meets Hi, a shoe-obsessed young alien from Planet Wendy on a journey of his own, she finds the inspiration she needs and has a whole lot of adventures along the way.
Hi is visiting Earth to learn about its leaders – what challenges will Hi encounter?
The first – and biggest – challenge Hi will encounter is the fact that most earthlings can’t see or hear him … which luckily he’s got Alex to help him find other sorts of Earthling leaders for his assignment but they might not quite be the leaders he’s looking for. Then there’s also the little issue of Hi’s secret obsession – human shoes! While Alex is busy trying to help Hi find other leaders for his research, Hi likes to sneak off to focus on footwear and that can get him into all sorts of trouble!
What are some of the most important lessons Hi and Alex learn from helping each other?
Coming from backgrounds that are literally light years apart, Hi and Alex have a lot to learn from the other. There are not only lessons about each other’s culture but about how to get along with someone from an entirely different universe and just how important this friendship is. Through their various adventures they also learn the value of a good sense of humour and creative approaches to dealing with the obstacles you might face.
What are some of your favourite alien stories?
Of course I love ET and the Star Wars movies but there are lots of great books with alien appearances. I love Colin McNaught’s picture book Here Come the Aliens and Aaron Blabey’s hilarious (as always) The Bad Guys in Alien V Bad Guys. For older readers there’s the brilliant The Hitchhiker’s’ Guide to the Galaxy which is still one of my favourite books of all time. The best thing about aliens is that there are no rules. They can look like, sound like and act like anything you want to imagine and you can use alien worlds to explore how other planets might do things differently.
What was your favourite part of writing this book?
I LOVED coming up with names for Wendyan characters. Hi has a human name (Hieronymous) to use on Earth because his real name (like all names on Planet Wendy) is unpronounceable by Earthlings. Instead it sounds like someone bashing a toy piano with a large inflatable hammer then accidentally stepping backwards onto a cat’s tail. All Wendyan names are made up of collections of sounds and I had so much fun playing around in my mind with different sound combinations for the different characters’ names.
Describe this book in three words.
Funny, cartoony, out-of-this-world (yes, I cheated there!)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Fiona Katauskas is a cartoonist and illustrator based in Sydney, currently working as an editorial cartoonist for The Guardian. Her work has appeared in a wide range of publications, including the Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian and The Age.
She has also designed cards for the Ink Group and t-shirts for Mambo and is the bestselling author of the non-fiction picture book, The Amazing True Story of How Babies Are Made.
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