written by Naomi Azuma

On his first day of junior high school, Tetsu sets out to join the biology club and ends up with more than he bargained for.

First, a cute girl crashes into the room in a flying saucer, recruits his help to catch a giant killer bunny, then disappears. Then he learns that the club is about to be terminated for lack of membership. And then he is called upon to catch a runaway alligator.

That’s just the beginning of the adventures for Tetsu in this entertaining book that combines slapstick comedy with budding romance. Lan, the girl in the flying saucer, hails from the planet Noid, and she has arrived on earth to round up various organisms that have escaped here. When she reappears the following day as Tetsu’s classmate, she has no trouble recruiting him to help her in her quest.

You could ask a number of questions, such as how the Noid creatures got to earth, how they can survive here, and why the only person available to round them up is a 13-year-old girl. Don’t bother. Logic is so thoroughly set aside in this book that when Lan tries to beef up the biology club by bringing the pictures on the music-room wall to life and passing them off as club members, the other students’ reaction is not amazement but outrage at the attempt to cheat the system.

As the book goes on, Tetsu and Lan do manage to find some new members for their club. Brainy Shirogane and shifty Keiichi sign on, and the climax of the first volume is an epic card tournament between the biology club and the student government over the last new member, heartthrob Mizumoto, who is also being recruited for an idol rock band. It takes a manga artist to bring action and suspense to the venerable game of Old Maid, but Azumea pulls it off nicely.

Young readers accustomed to fantasy and magic in their books will have no trouble accepting the crazy premise, and they will enjoy the goofy humor, too. The aliens in Suihelibe! are more droll than menacing, such as the giant six-legged turtle that is attracted to round black things—like Tetsu’s head. Lan plays the part of the clueless alien to the hilt, even swapping a life-size model rocket for her own spaceship and then taking off for a quick trip back to her home planet, assuming nobody will notice.

Azuma’s style is open and simple, with big areas of black and white and very little detail or toning. This makes the book easy to read, and its shorter-than-usual length (150 pages as opposed to the usual 200) may make it more appealing to reluctant readers.

Every classroom is full of bored kids wishing something interesting would happen to break up the routine. Suihelibe! fulfills that wish with likeable characters, exotic creatures, and just enough adventure to keep things moving without ever leaving the comfort zone.