Akiko on the Planet Smoo — Mark Crilley

When this fourth-grader Akiko comes home from school one day, she finds an envelope waiting for her. It has no stamp or return address. The message inside reads, "Dear Akiko: We are coming to get you. Meet us outside your bedroom window tonight at 8:00. Don't forget your toothbrush."

Akiko thinks this must be some kind of joke. How could anyone meet her outside her window? She lives on the seventeenth floor, for goodness' sake. But that evening, as she's preparing to study for a geography test, she finds a small spacecraft hovering outside her window with two odd little men inside. They have been sent to whisk her off to the planet Smoo, where she will lead a team enlisted to find the King of Smoo's kidnapped son, Prince Froptoppit. Akiko the head of a rescue mission? She's too afraid to be on the school's safety patrol!

So begins the first of four books about the adventures of Akiko, wherein she meets her team -- Spuckler Boach, Gax, Poog, and Mr. Beeba -- and sets off on a journey across Smoo to find a prince and become a leader.