Sci-Fi: Boy+Bot

Title: Boy+Bot
Author: Ame Dyckman
Illustrator: Dan Yaccarino 
Genre: Science Fiction
Major AwardsMichigan Reading Association Great Lakes Book Award (Nominee), New York Public Library 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing (Nominee), Kid’s Indie Next List “Inspired Recommendations for Kids from Indie Booksellers” (Finalist)
Age Group: 3-5 years old


Boy+ Bot by Ame Dyckman, is a beautiful book about the friendship between a boy and a robot. In the story the boy is picking pinecones one day when he meets a robot. They decide to play with one another, and as they were playing they were rolling down a hill and the robots power switch turned off. When the robot didn’t respond the boy thought the robot was sick and decided to take him home to help him feel better. The little boy fed the bot applesauce, read it a story, and put it to bed. When the boy’s parents came in at night to check on him they accidentally bumped the robot and turned on his power switch. When the robot turned on he saw that the boy’s eyes were closed and that he wasn’t responding. The robot thought the boy had malfunctioned and went to help him. The robot took the boy home, gave him oil, read the boy an instruction manual, and brought him a spare battery. The inventor comes and explains to the robot and helps with the misunderstanding. The boy wakes up and is happy to see that the robot is okay, and the robot is happy to see the boy is okay. In the end both the boy and the bot remain the best of friends and love to play with one another.


Boy+ Bot is an incredibly cute and well written children’s book that tells a wonderful story about an unlikely friendship. I think this book is an excellent book to include in a 
PreK-Kindergarten classroom library and is a good choice for a classroom read aloud. Not only is Boy+ Bot a great book to do a read aloud during literacy time, but there are also several disciplines in which this book can be connected to in classroom activities. In Math class, the students could create their own robot friend using different cut outs of shapes. In Writing, students could write and draw a picture describing what fun things them and their friend the robot would do together, and they could see examples of activities on the last page of the story. In Reading Language Arts, students can draw a T-chart about what are things that make kids feel better, and what are things that make robots feel better, to help students make connections between the examples given in the book such as sleeping and having a spare battery.

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