Super cute story. I ordered extras for my daughters class

Quick chapters chock full of meaning and adventure. Thought provoking.

I'll start off by saying that my 5 year old daughter loved this book, but I think as a work of literature, it could have been much improved from both a storytelling and structure perspective. This story is about life and in any story about life, there is joy, anger, sadness, insecurity, death, discovery, and love. This book has all of these and I found that none of these topics were too deep or too difficult for my 5 year old. Our robot "heroine" starts out as a piece of machinery and software for brains, but slowly, the wilderness starts to seep into her electronic brain and she becomes more wild as she befriends the creatures of the island. Instead of speaking the language of her makers, she learns the language of the animals (and each animal has a slightly different language -- my daughter was particularly amused by the fish) and soon overcomes her image as a monster. Through her interactions with the other animal inhabitants of the island, she learns what it means to be a friend and what it means to be a mother. And while our robot heroine Roz is not alive, she becomes "alive" and finds that the island has become her home; the animals have become her family and friends. The story explores many of themes of community and friendship and I think these topics are particularly suited for young kids who may be changing schools or starting school for the first time and meeting new friends. They may feel like outsiders, like an alien coming into a new environment with so much to learn and discover. Why don't they like me? What if they think I'm weird? What if no one wants to play with me? How can I overcome our differences? What if people pick on me? How can I make new friends? These are all themes explored in this book as our robot heroine spends her year on the island. My criticism of the book as a piece of literature is mostly a reflection of the plot turn at the end. The beginning of the book to me reminded me a bit of My Neighbor Totoro -- hear me out. It's a story of observation, discovery, exploration, and making friends; it doesn't need conflict to capture the attention of the reader because we are enthralled by the journey Roz has taken from a machine to a mechanical creature of the wilderness. I loved this aspect of the book; I loved the inquisitiveness of our robot "heroine" and the story of transformation and discovery. But unlike Totoro, this story ends with an action sequence that felt out of out place; it simply wasn't necessary for this story -- in my opinion -- and the tonal shift from the first 3/4 of the book to the last 1/4 of the book is thematically jarring. It's not that the ending is too dark or that it's too violent, but it simply doesn't match the tone of the rest of the story. I also found that the verbal imagery was somewhat lacking compared to other books I've recently read to my daughter. Compare this work to Owl Moon (albeit a short story) or Tale of Despereaux or The Magician's Elephant and you can really feel the lack of atmosphere and sense of imagery, which is a shame, considering the setting and the first-time experiences of our robot heroine. The wonderfully drawn pictures every chapter or two do make up for that to a degree, but I think that Mr. Brown missed an opportunity to create a more vivid sense of discovery and wonder. Still, I would recommend this book for children of all ages. I don't think kids are ever too young to talk about what it means to be alive (and consequently, what it means to be dead). From the perspective of grammar and lexical complexity, I found it fairly easy for my 5 year old pre-school daughter to absorb; most kids getting ready to start formal schooling will have no problem grasping the plot and structure of the story.

A review from my 10 year old: This book is about a robot named Roz, short for Rozzum, a robot that was supposed to be transported to a factory but the ship was sadly sunken and she was washed up on a island. She had to learn to survive in a place that a robot would never be in. And she finds many different techniques to do so. The robot goes on many exciting adventures and gets lots of friends that you might not expect including her own adopted son who happens to be a duck named Brightbill whose family was crushed by an avalanche. She was living a happy life until her creators find out where she is and don't like that she is living in the forest. I think this book is about the interaction between nature and technology. On his blog Peter Brown wrote, “Back in 2008, while working on a picture book called The Curious Garden… I loved imagining scenes of nature living in surprising places. And that got me thinking about scenes of unnatural things living in surprising places” ([...]). The robot is a piece of technology but she can learn to live in the wild which makes me think that one of the meanings of this book is that people today can still stop pollution and destruction of the natural world. I also think that the author was trying to tell the readers that no matter who you are you can do anything. The robot was having trouble in the forest at first but she started to learn and get better by watching animals. I also think that the book is about not giving up. Even after all the animals were scared of her Roz kept trying to be friendly and finally became friends with all the animals. One amazing thing about this book is the artwork witch makes sense because Peter Brown was an artist before he was a writer. Another thing that I liked about this book is that it makes me feel sad but gave me hope that things will get better. The third thing that makes this book unique is that it has very creative ideas. In one of the scenes in the book Roz loses her foot to a bear and then cant walk. And then she asked the beavers to make her a new one out of wood. That is one of the many creative scenes in the book. This book was very good in my opinion. It was one of my favorite books I've ever read and i would very much recommend it. This book is creative, well written, and interesting. I think that it is a great book and think its definitely worth reading. I don't want to give away the ending but is very dramatic and emotional. Roz has to draw on all of her friendships and skills she has learned from them to survive.

I was inspired to read this book after my children enthusiastically devoured it in school, eager for the upcoming movie adaptation. I found it to be a masterpiece tailored perfectly for its intended age range. The narrative is engaging and uniquely told from the perspective of a robot and narrator, sparking fascinating discussions about anthropomorphism. While, as an adult reader, I encountered some pacing issues that caused me to stall halfway through, I recognize that this book is not intended for my demographic. My initial assessment remains unchanged: this is an excellent book for young readers, encouraging critical thinking and conversation. I highly recommend it for its ability to captivate and inspire kids! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I read this book over a few weeks with my first and second grade sons. Wow! It blew me away. Very original and thoughtful. Especially relevant given the recent advances in AI technology. I highly recommend this treasure of children's literature.

Epic. Relatable. Moving plot which is written beautifully. Simply, a must read.