Esta pode ser a Série Starstormers Nicholas Fisk :
Published between 1980 and 1983 by Hodder, "Starstormers" consisted of five books; Starstormers, Sunburst, Catfang, Evil Eye and Volcano. Fed up of being left in a boarding school on earth while their parents colonize a new planet, a group of children decide to build their own spaceship out of obsolete equipment in order to join their parents, but in order to get there they will first have to deal with the mysterious Octopus Emperor.
Não há menção de ser dramatizado na página do autor, mas a página da Wikipedia para Jackanory observa (na seção sobre o renascimento do show):
The original series had occasionally included dramatised material, in e.g. 1984's Starstormers by Nicholas Fisk, and increasingly so towards the end of its run in the mid-1990s.