Will Jakeman’s Marvellous Mechanimals

Sent away from his home planet as a baby by his inventor mother, Will Jakeman arrives on the planet Urf and is taken in by Eliza and Nat Jakeman, who, as luck would have it, are also inventors.

Growing up in an inventors’ workshop means that Will soon starts to create his own gadgets and soon surpasses his mum and dad in terms of skill, creating Steel-Skull, his very own mechanical gorilla to protect him from bullies on the school run.

Yet when Ida Gripp, an evil entrepreneur, tries to buy Will’s mum and dad’s inventions and they refuse, Ida kidnaps them and imprisons them in her fortress. Even though they escape Ida’s clutches, Will is left alone and begins work making and selling "mechanimals" from the workshop. After many exciting adventures, and having made mechanimals as varied as the Attack Shark and the Hydraulic Bison, Will and his mechanimal army must face Ida again in a battle for Urf itself. Will good prevail, or will Ida’s Cronies destroy everything?

Nick Ward’s utterly brilliant, highly illustrated story about a boy inventor is in an absolute class of its own. Full of amazing diagrams of Will’s mechanimal inventions as well as newspaper excerpts, cartoons and illustrated text, it’s a complete inspiration and a great story with plenty of action. In fact, the book includes a couple of places where children can sketch out their own imaginary machines, inspired by the ones in the book. Highly recommended.