Runaway Robot by Frank Cottrell-Boyce illustrated by Steven Lenton

Alfie has an artificial hand. We don't know what has happened but now he has to attend a special school called Limb Lab where he is learning to use his Osprey Grip MM.  Alfie has no friends among his classmates, in fact one girl acts like his enemy, and he is finding the exercises designed to make the responses of his hand feel normal are difficult, annoying and frustrating. Limb Lab and Alfie's home are near an airport. Alfie has decided it is better to spend his days wandering around arrivals and departures and avoid both schools. His mum is too busy to notice what he is doing. Alfie knows she will assume he is at Limb Lab and the director of Limb Lab - Dr Shilling - assumes he is at his regular school.

The airport is not quite the perfect place to blend in, though, because Alfie is not going anywhere nor is he meeting someone who is arriving. The cafe lady becomes suspicious and grabs hold of Alfie. She grabs his hand (nicked named Lefty - it is his right hand) and his hand falls off. Alfie escapes but now his hand is missing and this is how he finds himself in the airport lost property office.

Sitting on a shelf in lost property is a huge robot called Eric.

"Eric is six foot six.
He like to sing.
He's super polite.
He does as he's told.
He's made of metal. ...
Eric tends to take things literally."

Eric and Alfie become friends. Eric is a gentle giant but others think he is dangerous. Alfie wants to help Eric. He finds a scooter which Eric can use in place of his missing his leg. It is wonderful the way Alfie is able to understand Eric's simple mind.  Eric's jokes are not funny and he keeps saying (in capital letters) I AM YOUR OBEDIENT SERVANT. MY NAME IS ERIC I AM LOST, but he can make a terrific cup of tea.

This book is a mad cap adventure with heaps of action but also with an underlying level of poignancy as we race to sort out Eric's identity and discover the truth about how Alfie lost his hand and why he has no memory of his accident.

There are some inventive and futuristic ideas in this book. Buses without drivers, houses that use iris recognition to welcome you home and open your front door, hedgehog-like cleaning robots who deliver messages and update you on the news and Alfie's own bionic hand which contains tools of all kinds including a GPS tracker. Click each of these review quotes for more plot details if I have not yet convinced you this is a BRILLIANT book!

Make sure when you read this book you take a look at page 91 where there is a tiny illustration error. Here is an audio sample from Chapter One.

Cottrell-Boyce writes with confidence and flair, spillinghis story into the reader’s head with artistry and comedy, so that readers areequally amused and enthralled, but also touched with a large brush of heart. Hehas a keen eye for human quirks, and seeing them play out both robotically aswell as in humans, is rather fun. Minerva Reads

Although Alfie’s world is full of robots, his story is essentially about what it means to be human and all the mistakes, mess and vulnerability that go along with it. As with Frank Cottrell-Boyce’s other books, a comical façade drives a crazy plot but just below the surface is a poignant and touching human story. Hilarious, complex and hugely satisfying.Book Trust

Beautifully told and full of characters readers will love, this book will have you laughing out loud one minute, in tears the next. Robot Eric, unfailingly polite, kind and helpful and trying to explain himself through misremembered jokes is an iron man for our time. Unmissable. LoveReading4Kids

I am a huge fan of books about robots. Here are some I have read recently.

Monstrous Devices

Boot Book One; Boot Book Two

The Wild Robot

Tin

Steven Lenton has a terrific body of work including a number of book covers for Frank Cotrell-Boyce and the series Shifty McGifty and Slipery Sam.

The Secret Sky Garden by Linda Sarah illustrated by Fiona Lumbers

I am going to quote some of the text first off because I just felt these words wrap around me when I read this utterly beautiful book:

"Funni liked the old airport car park.
It hadn't been use for year and was greyer than a Monday sky.
But Funni loved being there, 
hearing the planes take off and touch down,
while the blur rooftops stretched for miles like a calm still sea."

Funni spends her Saturdays at the old car park. She brings her kite and her recorder but it feels as though something is missing. She uses her recorder to imitate the sounds she hears - the tannoy, the whine of the planes and the bells of city square but it still feels as though something is missing.

Things need to change and so Funni hatches a plan. She decides to clean up the old car park and plant flowers. She picks up all the litter, squished cans and "other left behinds." After three Saturdays of hard work she plants her first seeds into the soil she has lugged in a sack.  Up in the sky a young boy, called Zoo, looks out the window of an aeroplane. He sees the flowers that now cover the old car park and he knows he must go there.

" (it's) a garden, there, in the air. full of flowers, bright like an emperor's blanket, nodding and waving - hello!"

Funni continues to play music, fly her kite and water her garden but something is still missing. It feels like a hole. Then Zoo arrives. What a beautiful page filled with flowers and cleverly designed to take the whole double spread as you turn the book longways. Zoo has bought his kite and his harmonica!  Take a minute now to compare the opening end papers and the final end papers. That's the best way to appreciate the miracle of this transformation. Yes the old concrete space is transformed but so are Funni and Zoo.

Urban renewal, friendship, determination and perseverance, creating an enriched environment and the search for happiness are the themes of this beautiful and seemingly simple picture book. But these themes are done with such a light touch - like a butterfly landing on your hand - you don't realise the magic of the moment straight away but if you stop and think about it you do. In one review I read of this book I saw words like uplifting, enchanting, 'make your heart sing.'

I learnt a new word reading this book. I love it when that happens - "tannoy". It means a loud speaker making announcements.

Take a look here to see the illustrations in this book by Fiona Lumbers. What a brilliant team - Linda Sarah and Fiona Lumbers. I hope they have plans to collaborate on another book soon.

After you read The Secret Sky Garden try to find these books which are also gentle tales of urban renewal (and in some cases friendship too):

 Read this review of The Curious Garden by Betsy Bird. I found myself applying so many of her comments about The Curious Garden to The Secret Sky Garden.

Linda Sarah is also the author of On Sudden Hill - another picture book I adored.