Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

The Great Rocket Robbery: World Book Day 2019

Rate this book
Laika and her fellow street dogs are being trained up for the greatest adventure in history – a trip to the moon! But Laika can't wait to see the stars – so she hatches a plan with her friends to get her there all on her own . . . Join Laika and friends in The Great Rocket Robbery by Carnegie Medal-winning author Frank Cottrell-Boyce, illustrated by Steven Lenton – final adventure!

112 pages, Paperback

Published February 28, 2019

8 people are currently reading
43 people want to read

About the author

Frank Cottrell Boyce

77 books263 followers
Frank Cottrell Boyce is a British screenwriter, novelist and occasional actor.

In addition to original scripts, Cottrell Boyce has also adapted novels for the screen and written children's fiction, winning the 2004 Carnegie Medal for his debut, Millions, based on his own screenplay for the film of the same name.
His novel Framed was shortlisted for the Whitbread Book of the Year as well as the Carnegie Medal.
He adapted the novel into a screenplay for a 2009 BBC television film. His 2009 novel Cosmic has also been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal.

He is married and the father of seven children.

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
21 (25%)
4 stars
24 (29%)
3 stars
27 (33%)
2 stars
6 (7%)
1 star
3 (3%)
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
Profile Image for Joy.
310 reviews2 followers
March 15, 2019
A fun, very silly story, yet it holds together surprisingly well and is even quite moving in places. A good choice for a World Book Day book.
Profile Image for Anthony Buck.
Author 3 books9 followers
April 1, 2020
Funny in parts but I didn't feel it hung together that well. Weirdly I've read quite a lot of books with dogs as the main character recently and this felt the least convincing.
Profile Image for Kasthuri BV.
374 reviews
November 21, 2019
A funny one I read on my son's recommendation! I can see the author's style of including too many facts just like how he did in the book Millions. It was really a good choice for this year's world book Day book.
Profile Image for Tim Roast.
787 reviews19 followers
March 21, 2019
This is a World Book Day 2019 book that tells the story of the time when "The Great Rocket Robbery was completed".

It is narrated by a dog - "I'm sorry if sometimes the words in this story come out wrong. I am not too used to words because I am a dog." And it is also about dogs as the narrating dog wants to set the record straight about "the famous hero dogs of rocket travel - Dezik, Zib, Belka, Strelka, Muschka - and the greatest Earth dog of all time, Laika." The story follows Laika and her adventure leading the other dogs on a quest as she is dead set on flying a rocket so she can fly home to the Dog Star. Laika's lessons learned from her adventure are also highlighted along the way.

The story is good for dog-lovers and is also good to find out about history (although the story obviously is fictional it is based on history which may lead to readers researching further into space travel and the like). The book is filled out a bit at the end by inserting a taster chapter from another book so is thicker than the story but the story is alright and being a WBD book is cheap.
Profile Image for Thalia S. A..
Author 0 books3 followers
July 16, 2021
I was expecting to find this not so interesting, but actually, it was nice to read a book in a dog's view. It was a cool book, and it was also funny at certain parts. I read this to my little brother, who said 'It's a fun book!'. Though there were a few parts that didn't make sense if you thought about them carefully...
Profile Image for A Severs.
242 reviews25 followers
February 19, 2019
Great to see a quality little book from a quality author (even if he is masquerading as a dog) published for World Book Day. Hopefully this amusing and quite insightful story will inspire children to get into FCB's other books.
2 reviews
November 26, 2022
It was a funny and exciting read, I do think it would be better for a younger reader (5-10). Over all it was a quite a good book, would recommend.
Profile Image for Alex Gunsean.
50 reviews
February 17, 2024
8.5/10

The Great Rocket Robbery by Frank Cottrell Boyce (a very good author) was a very surprisingly enjoyable read and very fun. Of course, it is a world book day book so the book had to be rushed quite a bit, but the plot and premise of the book is very interesting. The book also has interesting characters, which is something rare with books about dogs. Frank Cottrell Boyce manages to pack in a really engaging story in about 70 pages. The humour in the book was also decent and all of it was extremely well-written and managed the dog writing the book very well. On the whole a very fun book, which could have easily been made a full-length book, and a very good choice for World book day.
Profile Image for Lilly.
176 reviews27 followers
May 5, 2019
Nice easy read for children around 8 year old.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.