Right now I am reading House of Robots by James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Juliana Neufeld. This is the first book in a trilogy about a four-member family living in South Bend, Indiana. I love that they're set in our home state! These books are part of something called Jimmy Books. This is an organization dedicated to getting kids to read. Any profits made from these books goes to scholarships for teachers, helping bookstores, supporting school libraries, extending the reach of a pro-reading website, and distributing books to kids who can't afford them. Here is the link for the website: http://jimmypatterson.org/James Patterson is one of my favorite authors. I had no idea he wrote children's books! The book follows Sammy Hayes-Rodriguez, an elementary school student who has a genius mother and a comic drawing dad. His mom invents robots and teaches at Notre Dame University while his dad illustrates very famous comic books about robots. Sammy also has a sister, Maddie, who is homeschooled by a robot because she suffers from Severe Combined Immunodeficiency, or SCID for short. They have robots for tutoring Maddie, robots for cleaning the house, robots for making breakfast, and so on and so forth. As you can see, robotics is very ingrained in their lifestyle! This story is specifically about the journey of Sammy and his new robot brother- E (short for Egghead, or Einstein, or Error). Sammy's mom invented E for a secret purpose and needs him to go to school with him. Taking E to school started out as a nightmare for Sammy, but slowly he learned to appreciate what E could teach him and do for him. He learned how to accept and love E for who he was. In the end, Sammy realizes how all of the robots in the house are a part of the family. I love this because not all people consider non-humans to be family. I have three cats and a dog that I consider very much my family!
While reading this book I felt as though it could relate to many different familial circumstances where new members are introduced such as families having another child, adopting children, hosting foster children, or two families becoming one and having step-children. I would recommend this book to all of my students, especially if they are struggling with any of the above circumstances. I love this book and hope that the next two in the series are just as great, if not better!
Haleigh, I really enjoyed reading your post! I love the cause that this book supports, that's amazing. I think this book sounds really good. It's unique because I haven't read or really heard of any other children's books dealing with robots in this way; it made me curious to read it! I think you did a great job explaining the book and relating it to those familial circumstances potentially in your future students. I think these posts should make the readers want to read the books, and you succeeded in that!
ReplyDeleteThis is for sure an interesting choice of read! I love that foundation, that seems really cool! I immediately felt as if the robot brother E represented a new adopted or foster care child. This is one of my lifelong goals, so I might want to pick up this book to read! Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThat is so great that the book is set in Indiana! It sounds like this book would connect well with many students :) Great post!
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