Robots at Home

Reviewed by: Sheila Dube - Springvale Public Library, Springvale, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: October 20, 2015

Review

This non-fiction book is part of a series entitled Robots Everywhere! Robot fans in grades 1-3 will enjoy browsing the pictures that show a variety of robots that clean floors, build cars, clean gutters, mow lawns and assist with mobility. The font is large and the sentence structure simple which will reinforce the new reader's enjoyment of this topic. There is a table of contents, a page about Robot Scientists, a fun facts page, a glossary, and suggested further reading. Educators and parents are instructed to dig further into the topic by downloading complementary resources from www.lerneresource.com Unfortunately, the book suffers from repetitive text as a way to simplify content and a confusing layout. Although the title of the book is "Robots at Home", only a few robots are actually being used in the home. Most are being used by researchers in a controlled environment. It is unclear which robots are still in research phase or are actually available on the market. The cool dog robot on the front cover, major shelf appeal, is explained in detail on the CIP page in small print, but does not appear anywhere in the content of the book. The words listed on the glossary page are not identified or highlighted in the text but seemingly random sentences are highlighted throughout.

Overall Book Score: fair