Science Fiction barnbok med stalkliknande utomjordingar (Martians / Venusians)?

Jag försöker hitta en bok som jag väldigt vagt minns från när jag var barn i grundskolan på 1970-talet.

Första science fiction bok jag någonsin läste (som barn på 1940-talet), John Keir Cross s Angry Planet , underrubrik:

An authentic first-hand account of a journey to Mars in the space-ship Albatross, compiled from notes and records by various members of the expedition, and now assembled and edited for publication by

JOHN KEIR CROSS

from manuscripts made available by

Stephen MacFarlane

the illustrations are by

Robin Jacques

(Stephen MacFarlane är en fiktiv karaktär i boken; Cross och Jacques är den riktiga författaren och illustratören.) Detta var den första i en serie av två böcker, Cross's Angry Planet serien ; uppföljaren var SOS From Mars (retitled Röda resan tillbaka för den amerikanska utgåvan): Ett förstahands konto av det andra och tredje marspeditioner av rymdskepparna Albatross och Comet .

David Drake har en fin recension av The Angry Planet på sin webbsida.

Jag antar att det var en barns science fiction-bok, förmodligen den 4: e klassens läsnivå.

Bakomslaget på min kopia (US-utgåva av Coward-McCann) har en lista över "Äventyrsböcker för pojkar och flickor".

Kan ha illustrerats med stipplade penn- och bläckteckningar.

Det har svartvita illustrationer.

Historien ägde rum på Mars (eller kanske Venus)

Huvudåtgärden är på Mars (inte Venus), men historien börjar och slutar i Skottland och innehåller två resor över det interplanetära rymden.

där invånarna är växtliknande, med ett glödande huvud och stjälkliknande lemmar, snarare som en inverterad tulpanlampa, och rör sig med graciösa rörelser i benen.

Således beskrivs de på omslaget i den amerikanska utgåvan. Här är en beskrivning från boken (amerikansk utgåva, som du kan berätta från stavningen):

There was nothing, in the whole range of our experience as living beings on earth, to which they could quite be compared, although in general shape they were not unlike human beings. They were small, varying in height from 4 to 5 feet—their leader, to whom I have already referred as the tallest, was about 5 feet 6 inches. Their bodies were slender, smooth and round; in general dimensions comparable to the trunk of a medium-sized silver birch on earth. In color they were, in general, yellowish—a dark, patchy yellow ochre; but this deepened to green towards the foot in most cases, and sometimes merged to a fleshy pink and even red at the top. At the top, this trunk of theirs, as I have called it, bulbed out slightly into a head (I am, in this description, forced to use analogous human terms—"head," "trunk," "hands," and so on; but, as you will see later, the Martians are quite different from us—the words are used only as equivalents, for the purpose of building up some sort of image, however imperfect, in your minds). This "head" was covered, on the rounded top, with a sudden fringe—a sort of crown—of small soft tufts of a vivid bright yellow color. Just below this, on the front—the "face" (although strictly speaking the Martians, as we decided later, had no faces—or rather, their faces were these tufts or crowns on the top that I have described)—there were three, sometimes four, sometimes even five, small jellyish bulbs—glaucous protuberances which glowed transparently. These were the eyes. There were no organs of hearing or smell—at least, in that first glimpse we could see nothing that might be an ear or a nose; we found out later, as we shall describe, that the Martians had a highly developed sense of smell, although they could only "hear" sounds of considerable loudness.

I now come to describe the "feet" and "hands" of the Martians. At the lower extremity of the trunk—the greenish part I have mentioned—the body suddenly bifurcated. Each of the forks split again almost immediately, and so on and so on, so that on the ground, at the foot of each figure, there was a perfect writhing mass of small, hard, fibrous tentacles. About a third of the way up the trunk, in the front, there was another sudden branching of similar "tendrils," as I might call them—only these ones were longer and lighter in color and seemingly more sensitive. These were obviously the "hands," since they held, in their twining grasp, the Martian weapons—long spears, or swords, of some bright transparent crystalline substance—a sort of flinty glass, as it seemed. Finally, to complete this sketch of the appearance of the Martians, there were, just under the bulb of the head, and on each side of the trunk, two smaller clusters of tentacles (or "tendrils," as I really prefer to call them). These were very short and slender, and light green, almost white in color—like small pale sea anemones.

Jag tror att historien hade att göra med utforskare som landade på planeten, möter infödingarna och sedan äntligen måste fly från en naturkatastrof.

Yep. De två männen och tre avskilda barn tar av sig från Skottland, landar på Mars, möter de goda martiansna (de vackra människorna), kämpar vid sidan av B.P. mot de onda martiansna (de hemska). Kampen går väldigt illa, och då blir det värre:

Simultaneously the sky, which up to now had been blue and pellucid above the scene, grew suddenly dark, and a great gust or wave of heat seemed to rush in the air all round us. And from the top of the biggest of the mountains which overhung the city there poured a sudden fountain of flame.

"My heavens!" yeled Mac, white and staggered in the the unexpected gloom, "it's an eruption! Lord help us, Steve—the volcano!—the volcano!"

* * *

How to describe the terrible scene that followed? The lava, sizzling and bubbling as if it were alive, poured into the doomed city. As it lapped round the bases of the great domes, one by one they seemed to melt and sink into nothingness—immense shining bubbles, red in the reflected light, subsiding and vanishing in the tide. Contorted figures, caught in the molten fingers of this implacable beast—Beautiful People and Terrible Ones alike—poised for a moment in a brief agony, and then sank into the stream. The dreadful liquid crept and oozed over the entire floor of the city—the saucer of the valley became a seething cauldron—a vast and terrible witch's brew.

Kan det vara C.S. Lewis Utan den tysta planet ? Konsten på omslaget verkar passa din beskrivning. Historien involverar huvudpersonen som försöker komma hem från Mars innan dåliga saker händer.

Martiansna är inte växter, men den lokala floran beskrivs som exceptionellt lång och tunn på grund av den lägre gravitationen.

Låter att det kan vara Red Planet av Robert A. Heinlein.

At a rest stop, Willis wanders off and encounters one of the adult sentient Martians. The three-legged alien takes the two boys and Willis to join a ritual called "growing together" with a group of its fellows. They also share water, making Jim and Frank "water friends" with the Martian, who is named Gekko.