TITLE: The Astoundingly True Adventures of Daydreamer Dev

AUTHOR: Ken Spillman

PAGE EXTENT: 152

PUBLISHER: Puffin Books

GENRE: Middle Grade

MY RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

SOURCE: Received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Forever daydreaming-that’s Dev. Sitting in class or watching the clouds from the roof of Kwality Carpets, he floats off to places all over the world and has wonderful, bizarre adventures.

Mild-mannered schoolboy Dev is no stranger to survival in extreme environments. Classroom trances and home-made flights of fancy take him all over the place-what other kid could have visited Amazon rainforests, summited Mount Everest and crossed the Sahara? Along with the challenges of all this, he also needs to avoid the wrath of teachers and make Amma and Baba proud . . . Not so easy when your brain lives elsewhere!
In this volume, three wacky yet adrenaline-filled stories transport the reader into situations they can only dream of.

Set out with Dev on a solo expedition to reach the South Pole and report back to his teacher on global warming.

Find out which Dev finds more terrifying-going down a volcano or the baffling truth that a girl from his street has arrived there with him!

Join Dev and his trivia-mad friend OP as they become the first space stowaways on a moon landing mission.

For Dev, it has always been Access All Areas and no holds barred!

Are you in the mood for an adrenaline rush-inducing, action-packed-to-the-brim book that takes you on a wild journey to a volcano, Antarctica and outer space?!

Dev, a middle-schooler who is known for frequently escaping into his vivid daydreams and who went on a journey to the Amazon, across the Sahara and up the Himalayas, is back in the second instalment of the series with some thrillingly imaginative adventures to an active Volcano called Whakaari in New Zealand, to the South Pole and to the MOON! I kid you not, this kid has a wiiiiiild imagination! (Hehe, see what I did there😉)

Not only is this book super creative and fun-filled, it’s peppered with really cool science facts, ranging from moon rovers to the polar ice caps! I was today years old when I found out that there are no polar bears in Antarctica and they inhabit only the Arctic region. 🥲🙈

And, is a Middle Grade book complete without illustrations? Suvidha Mistry’s illustrations throughout the book make the experience all the more amazing!

What really impressed me about this book is the fact that the author actually asked children during one of his author visits where they would like to see Dev travelling to next and incorporated those ideas in this book! Can’t wait to go on more whacky adventures with our resident daydreamer!

Which place is at the top of your travel bucket list? Do let me know in the comments! Australia is at the top of mine!