"A Boy and His Bot," by Daniel H. Wilson, Bloomsbury, 180 pages, $16.99 (f) (ages 9-12)
Daniel H. Wilson has got a thing for robots.
Wilson deftly employed his PhD in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University to write previous nonfictions "How to Survive a Robot Uprising," "Where’s My Jetpack?" and "How to Build a Robot Army." For his first foray into fiction, Wilson wisely sticks to what he knows to create a science fiction adventure for kids 9 to 12 years old.
"A Boy and His Bot" explores the fate of Code Lightfall, who stumbles upon an experimental world built and abandoned by an ancient human civilization, a world his grandfather may also have mysteriously disappeared to a year before. Traveling with a speck-sized robot named Peep and a 10-foot-tall atomic slaughterbot named Gary, young Code Lightfall must find a way out of Mekhos, and a way to save the lives of his new friends.
But Code, who is aware of how weird his name is, has found through experience “the safest course of action was usually no action at all.” Code is an unlikely hero, but the imaginative universe and characters Code meets will delight middle readers in the way the first journey to Hogwarts or Wonderland does.
Amid the fantastical world peopled by robots that Wilson creates, the problems Code faces are very much grounded in this world. I would highly recommend this book for any child who unfortunately has to try to understand death and loss at a young age. The world Code enters is about to be “disassembled,” and foreign robots view Code’s very human reaction to their possible destruction as equally foreign. After all, disassembly is part of every robot’s programing in Mekhos.
While the book has some heavy-hearted themes, for the most part it is a fun, science-fiction adventure. It seems a little short and full of big words, but the plot is full of action and the characters are extremely likable. For his first fiction, Wilson does a great job writing for kids.
Wilson will also be releasing his first novel for adults this year — "Robopocalypse." It doesn’t come out until June, but as Wilson was turning pages of the book in it was already being translated into a screenplay. Steven Spielberg has confirmed directing the movie, which is scheduled to begin filming in January 2012.
With all this success, let’s hope Wilson continues writing for kids too.
Heidi Grieser is a freelance journalist who contributes to The Deseret News and Utah Stories.