Catch It! Stop! Bot! by James Yang

"I have a bot!"

It's a lovely day for a walk in the city, but the boy is enjoying more than a stroll. HE has a cool, new bot.

But just as he gets in front of a high-rise apartment house, the bot's little propeller kicks in and it starts to rise, up, up, up.

The dutiful doorman offers to catch it and races up the stairs inside, stopping at a third-floor window, but the bot's already gone by.

One the next level a man tries to snag it with his broom, but it eludes him. As it continues straight up, it dodges a cook's long spoon, a trombone's slide, and a boy's baseball glove. It brushes by a lady with a hairbrush, and a long-necked giraffe, and avoids a woman's Venus flytrap!

Finally a boy claims he has the best bot catcher of all--a bunch of bananas?

But there's a surprise bot catcher on the roof. Could it be King Kong himself?

The happy but no-doubt winded doorkeeper returns the captured robot to the boy, just in time for a little girl to let go of something else.

My balloon!

James Yang's new Stop! Bot! (Viking Books, 2019) offers toddlers and preschoolers a nice slice of city life with its simple geometric building and windows and stylized people, plus a bit of fun for older preschoolers who will recognize the trope of the gorilla on the roof. Simple enough for a two-year-old to follow and yet, with its large typeface, rhyming sounds, and visual cues, this one is easy enough for emergent readers to soon read alone.