Eeek! The Runaway Alien

Eeek! The Runaway Alien Synopsis

Eleven-year-old Charlie Spruit can't believe his luck when he opens his door to an alien one morning. Who is he? Why has he come? Charlie soon discovers that this alien has run away from space to Earth to be with him because he's soccer mad and the World Cup is on...! 'Eeek,' as Charlie decides to call him, takes up secret residence in Charlie's bedroom where he sleeps on the ceiling by night and pores over Charlie's football magazines and stickers by day. All is going surprisingly well until slimy sci-fi mad Sid Spiker, who lives out the back, spots Eeek through his telescope. Sid has his own plans for this alien, which bring surprises that no-one could have imagined...

Karen on her inspiration for Eeek!  I have two boys and when they were younger I was always looking for books that would encourage them to read - in particular my eldest who wasn’t interested at all. 

Both boys were (and still are) mad about sport.  I had just finished my first book, The Secret Lake, and was keen to try something very different and which would particularly (but not exclusively) appeal to reluctant boy readers - or to boys who are simply too busy being boys to read. I knew that I wanted something fast-paced and funny, and with a subject matter that would appeal - and very quickly came to the conclusion that since most boys like soccer and nearly all like aliens, a story that combined the two should do the trick. ‘Running away from home’ as a theme also appealed – as did the idea of a ‘diary’ voice – to draw the reader right into Charlie’s world.  Once I started if flowed quite effortlessly – I had countless scenes of boy-dialogue to draw on, after all!

The football practice scenes were inspired by the many Sunday mornings spent down at our local football club ‘Rocks Lane’ (renamed Rockstone Lane in the story) where I (and one other mother) was joint manager of their seven-a-side team and my husband the coach!  

The twist at the end of the story wasn’t planned – it just happened - and it fell into place beautifully. 

The Illustrations  I knew that I needed black and white illustrations throughout – to keep busy boys hooked in - and it took a long time to find someone that I could afford and work with to make this happen.  He actually lives in Bosnia – and every picture was briefed by email with me sending him little stickman sketches of what I had in my mind’s eye.  Before doing this I laid every page of the book out onto the kitchen table to work out when I needed to break up the text with an image.  It was a lot of hard work!

The front cover is actually my own design – with a little help from Damir to add shadows, and improve the feet, hands and football boots.  I drew the alien in Microsoft Paint using my mouse and right hand (very odd as I am left-handed).  I couldn’t believe how well he came out.  I had to look on Google to work out how to draw an eye though!  The great thing about this was that my illustrator, Damir, was able to run with the design for the black and white illustrations.

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