Meet the author

James Lancett.

Writer & illustrator · United Kingdom

James Lancett: British illustrator and BAFTA-nominated animation director whose debut Galaxy Runners is a hyper-illustrated, laugh-out-loud space romp built to hook reluctant readers age 7 to 11.

James Lancett is a British author-illustrator and BAFTA-nominated animation director who studied illustration and animation at Kingston University in London and has directed for television, including work on The Amazing World of Gumball. A prolific illustrator of other writers' books, he steps up as author-illustrator in our corpus with his debut Galaxy Runners: Jello Breaks the Universe, published by Scholastic. It follows a scrappy delivery crew, twins, a reckless robot and a fiery bodyguard, who end up smuggling an impossibly cute, gooey little alien whose powers can literally break the universe. Fizzing with energy, it blends highly illustrated black-and-white pages with punchy comic-strip panels and short, snappy chapters, tailor-made to hook readers who find big blocks of text off-putting. Fast, funny and gloriously chaotic, it puts friendship, teamwork and courage at the heart of the mayhem.