Making A Friend: Little Robot Alone by Patricia MacLachlan

Every morning Little Robot put on his tracks:

One by one, tight and strong,
rolling, strolling, all day long.

But first, he pauses to plug in for a full charge and a robot-ready breakfast:

Oats with oozy oil are yummy,
slipping slowly down my tummy.

Little Robot trundles out of his cozy cottage, shaded by a willow and bounded by a blue pond. There are fish leaping, a duckling paddling in the pond, and squirrels aplenty, frisking up and down the tree. It is lovely and peaceful, but still Little Robot is lonely. He needs a friend, but realizes that if he wants a friend, he will have to work at making one.

One night he dreamed of a smooth, shiny shape.

His green bulb glowing, Little Robot assembles sheet metal, screwdriver and wrenches and shapes the friend of his dreams. He gives it a red button nose, pauses, and then presses it.

Nothing.

It's back to the old drawing board for Little Robot. In his workshop he adds a broom tail, some blue marble eyes, and some small treads for each of the four legs. He charges up the battery and presses the red button nose again.

The broom wagged.

Sometimes you have to work at making a good friend, and Little Robot has that friend at last, Little Dog, to be with him all day and rest with him at night, in Patricia MacLachlan and Emily MacLachlan Charest's Little Robot Alone (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018). Newbery Award winner MacLachlan shapes a gentle story about making a full life for yourself, and artist Matt Phelan adds the soft-focused pencil and watercolored illustrations to set off this sweet and, for a robot tale, quaintly bucolic story, one that seems to promise more of Little Robot and Little Dog in future episodes. Says Publishers Weekly, "Little Robot is instantly winning--surprisingly expressive, sweet but never cloying, and in service to a higher and very relatable purpose."