Inspiring Young Readers

posted on 09 Jun 2026

Nova by Chris Bradford

A new book from Chris Bradford is always a cause for celebration here at The Letterpress Project and this is the third in a trilogy of space survival stories – Lunar and Stellar preceding this instalment.

There are plenty of us – young and old – who love the idea of space travel and imagine a future in which our adventures would take us out into the further reaches of the solar system and beyond.

Young Max Nova is heading towards Mercury with his father, a space trucker, on what should be a routine journey. But their mission is interrupted by an urgent message diverting them to explore a dangerous anomaly that has emerged near the Sun.

The fears that this might be the start of a supernova turn out to be misplaced – but only to be replaced by something even more strange and potentially dangerous. What they find themselves heading towards is a wormhole – a sort of portal that bends space and enables travel across vast spaces. A wormhole not only bends space but time too – travelling in a wormhole might seem like minutes to the traveller but should they return, many years will have passed in ‘normal’ space.

With their spacecraft beginning to fall apart and head for the sun, Max abandons ship but finds his escape pod drawn into the mouth of the wormhole. What will he find there and, more importantly, can he get back in time to help save his father?

Well, of course, I’m not going to tell you how it turns out because you’ll want to read that for yourself. You’ll also really enjoy the excellent illustrations that have been provided by Charlotte Grange and which give the story an added dimension and detail.

The book is guided towards readers of 9+ and has a reading age of 7 and above but I think this is also a story that would be great read aloud and shared with a small audience – maybe in a classroom setting. I can imagine some lively discussion taking place once Max’s adventure is over.

Available now from Barrington Stoke, who specialise in books for reluctant readers of all kinds and can be obtained from your local independent bookshop – who will be happy to order it for you if they don’t have it on their shelves.

 

Terry Potter

June 2026