The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet

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The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet is a science fiction/fantasy novel written by Eleanor Cameron in 1954.

This children's book is set in a beach community in California, as well as on a tiny, habitable moon -- "Basidium" -- in an invisible orbit 50,000 miles from Earth. The "Mushroom Planet," visited by the protagonists David and Chuck, is covered in various types of mushrooms and is populated by little green people who are in a state of distress.

[edit] Plot summary

When two boys find a mysterious ad in a newspaper asking for two young boys to build a spaceship, they quickly construct one out of old tin and scrap wood, and bring it to the advertiser. This man is the mysterious Mr. Bass, a scientist living in an observatory who goes unnoticed by most of the townspeople for some reason. He shows the boys a previously undetected satellite of the earth, the eponymous planet, that can only be seen with a special filter he has concocted. He gives them some special fuel he invented to power their spaceship, and tells them to fly to the mushroom planet (after getting their parents' permission). He warns them that their trip will only be successful if they bring a mascot.

When it is time for launch, they grab a hen at the last moment for a mascot, and rocket into space. They wake up on the mushroom planet, a small, verdant world covered in soft moss and tree size mushrooms. They quickly meet some residents of the mushroom planet, small men with large heads and slightly green skin, the cousins of the mysterious Mr. Bass. They tell the boys that their planet has had a crisis and everyone is slowly dying. The boys meet up with the king of the planet, the Great Ta, and end up solving the natives' problem, before returning to earth.

[edit] Criticism

This book is very imaginative, especially considering its brief size and the vocabulary limitations of the audience for which it was written. A small undetected satellite of the earth is covered with mushrooms and inhabited by spore people. Very little time is actually spent on the mushroom planet; most of the book is character development. This book was written at the request of the author's son, and is a blend of science and magic. 1954 was a year when the idea of science and progress still reigned supreme, so the book focuses around the boys' spaceship. However, the book also has a very magical feel to it, in the person of the mysterious Mr. Bass, who in addition to being a spore person and a scientist, is later (in the sequels) revealed to be both a galactic traveller and a magician, as well as a Welsh bard, and so on.