Review: The Junkyard Bot:Robots Rule, Book 1 by C. J. Richards

SUMMARY FROM NETGALLEY.COM:

Worker robots keep the high-tech town of Terabyte Heights humming, but ten-year-old George Gearing is the only one who has a robot for a best friend. When his scrappy but beloved pal Jackbot is hit by a car, the whiz kid re-engineers him with fancy parts from state-of-the-art TinkerTech Laboratories. Jackbot’s astounding new skills far exceed anything George—or even TinkerTech’s head of robotics—could ever have imagined. Will the villainous Dr. Micron destroy the whole town to see his tech-driven dream realized? Not if George can help it . . .

MY TAKE:
I like shows and books showing precocious kids so I figured I would like this one too.

In The Junkyard Bot, George is a young boy with a talent for robotics. His best friend is a shabby robot named Jackbot. When he ends up having to fix Jackbot with parts from TinkerTech's workshop, he sets off a chain of events that could spell doom for his town.

If Jimmy Neutron had been more modest or didn't have the means to fund his experiments and projects, I think he would have been exactly like George. Because George isn't privileged, he has remained humble despite his talents. I think that's part of the reason why it's so easy to cheer for him. He's a good kid and a brilliant, out-of-the-box thinker.

Jackbot, on the other hand, was nice at first but once he developed a personality, well, he got a bit more annoying, but at least he also became more interesting. His cockiness was also probably why I imagined him with C3P0's voice.

There were some exciting parts in the book, and there were several plot twists as well. Some of the plot twists are easy enough to predict, but there were a few that came as a surprise too.
Thanks to NetGalley and HMH Books for Young Readers for the e-ARC.

THE GOOD:

1. Jackbot and George have a sweet relationship.
2. George is a likable character.
3. There are plenty of interesting things going on. 

THE BAD:

1. There were some plot twists that weren't as surprising as they could have been. 

READ IT IF:

1. You or your child like robotics.
2. You like books wherein the protagonist has a solid back-up crew.
3. You've always wanted your own robot. 

RATING:


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