The Seventh Voyage is a graphic novel adaptation of a short story of the same name by Stanislaw Lem. The book tells the story of one of the voyages made by Ijon Tichy, an explorer of space. He is forced to solve a problem caused by a peculiar set of circumstances involving a time loop. Hilarity ensues as Tichy tries to solve the mechanical, gravitational, and temporal problems that arise during his voyage.
The character of Ijon Tichy is stubborn and pragmatic to a fault, and his sober treatment of almost ridiculous circumstances makes the book worth laughing out loud at in some places. At times, the art in this book serves to emphasize what the loneliness of the vast openness of space can be like, while at the same time not dwelling on it so much that it becomes too melancholy for a children’s book. The art style is simple yet humorous, and the afterword contains some details about how the author, who is also the artist, went through the artistic process. This is information that will be interesting to many young readers.
Overall, this book is a quick read, but one with such complexity that it cannot be considered a “simple” children’s book. This richness of story also contributes to the worth of this book in terms of being enjoyable for multiple readings, and I think many children would enjoy fresh nuances to discover when reading it again and again.
This book was sent to Compass Book Ratings for review by Scholastic
Content Analysis:
Profanity/Language: 2 religious exclamations.
Violence/Gore: All of the violence in this book is comical and includes minor property damage; characters are accidentally knocked out a few times; characters hit each other with blunt objects a few times; a character bites another; a few reports of fistfights.
Sex/Nudity: All the nudity in this book is comical but is illustrated in the panels and includes: a few instances where a man shows his butt to another man in a display similar to “mooning” (with no sexual connotation); a character’s butt is displayed when his pants fall down.
Mature Subject Matter:
World War II and concentration camps are mentioned briefly in the authors’ biographies after the story.
Alcohol / Drug Use:
People speculate that a character may drink alcohol sometimes.
