Drac and the Gremlin by Allan Baillie, pictures by Jane Tanner, 1988.

The great thing about this book is that you really need to look at the pictures in order to get the full story.  If you read the text alone, it sounds like a magical space adventure story, but when you see the pictures, you realize that it all takes place in a girl’s imagination as she and her younger brother play in their backyard.  The book never mentions the children’s names (or directly talks about reality at all).  The girl calls herself “Drac, the Warrior Queen of Tirnol Two”, and her younger brother “the Gremlin of the Groaning Grotto.”

Drac begins by trying to capture the The Gremlin.  She pursues him across the jungles, but when she finally traps him, she receives a message from the White Wizard.  The White Wizard is being attacked by “General Min” (their cat, Minnie) and desperately needs her help!  Drac persuades the Gremlin to help her.

The two of them get into Drac’s “anti-gravity solar-powered planet hopper” and race to the rescue!  They arrive just in time to save the White Wizard in her current form (a moth).

But, they are soon facing another peril: “The Terrible Tongued Dragon” (their dog)!   Drac is almost overcome by the dragon, but the Gremlin saves her just in time!

Their adventure ends at the palace, where the “White Wizard” (their mother) rewards them with “the Twin Crimson Cones of Tirnol Two” (ice cream).

I love the way that the adventure unfolds in the children’s minds and the pictures show what is actually happening to the children, as their mother and everyone else sees them.  The pictures are beautiful and realistic.  The book was originally published in Australia, and I recognize some of the plants from pictures that a friend of mine there has sent me!

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.