RoboPup: Motordog by Kurt Cyrus

FLIP THE KID
FOUND MOTOR DOG
BY SCROLLING THROUGH
A CATALOG.

MOTOR DOG, PERFECT PET!
BUY IT ON THE INTERNET.

A kid with an iPad
under the blanket in bed....
placing orders from the 'Net.
Wonder what pet he'll get?

Flip wants a dog, but when his shipment arrives, it's not exactly a cute little Furby inside. Still, as he sets up his robo-pet, Flip has no idea what this botdog can do.

But he finds out soon enough. Out for a trial run--a harmless little walkin'-the-dog stroll down the sidewalk, Motor Dog spots Scoot the Cat and the chase is on. Scoot (true to his name) is fast enough to make it to the nearest tree first and climbs to a high limb. But Motor Dog unfurls his auxiliary jet pack and with a yank drags Flip, still manfully hanging on to the leash, up, up, and away in full chase.

As he soars, Flip tries to reprogram his pet with the remote in one hand.

"QUIT! REBOOT! DELETE!

ERROR! ERROR! ERROR!"

Motor Dog only sprouts a rotor for extra maneuverability among the branches. Scoot hunkers down. Flip hangs on, thumb feverishly searching for the right button.

"MALFUNCTION!" MINOR GLITCH!

UPLOAD? DOWNLOAD? WHICH? WHICH?"

Then things get really serious. Flip the Kid loses his grip on the leash and suddenly he's falling down and down through the limbs. Only Motor Dog has the speed to save him--IF he can reprogram himself from cat-catching to Flip-catching in time.

Kurt Cyrus' new runaway robot story, Motor Dog (Hyperion Books, 2014) has all the cyber-creature features that robot-loving readers could want--a loyal dog equipped with rockets, thruster boosters, rotors, and it seems, even a quick-deploying parachute to save the day. Written in robust rhymes with lots of wham-bam vocabulary, this fast-moving story comes with David Gordon's Marvel-comic retro styled illustrations filled with color and above all, motion.  A vertical two-page spread shows the action from tree top to soft landing, and the ending gives a nod to the joys of conventional pet ownership, as Flip disables the whiz-bang functions and renames his robodog plain ol' Buddy!  Not your average boy-and-his-dog tale, but one modern gadgeteers and dog lovers alike will favor.

Kirkus powers up for this one:  "An amusing fable for the techno-savvy and Luddites alike."

Bot Bash: Robot Rumpus by Sean Taylor

With Mary Poppins apparently already engaged, two parents opt for robot child care from the new Schott catalog so that they can head out for a night on the town. Dressed to the nines, they trip out the door, waving blithely, leaving their daughter in the care of cutting-edge new babysitting bots.

MOM SAID, "THEY'RE THE LATEST MODELS.
WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?"

Famous last words. All goes well at first. Cook-Bot stirs up a passable pot of spaghetti, and Clean-Bot does up the dishes all spic and span. Wash-Bot runs a warm bath, and the girl prepares to step in.

I GOT MY BATH TOYS DOWN OFF THE SHELF.
BUT THAT'S WHEN THE RUMPUS BEGAN.
WASH-BOT WAS AFRAID OF MY TOY CROCODILE.
LIGHTS FLASHED!

The automatons run amok. Tooth-Bot squirts the toothpaste wildly into the loo, Dry-Bot blow-dries everyone, and Dress-Bot puts pajamas on Book-Bot. In the middle of the melee, Cook-Bot appears to fill the tub with gallons of spaghetti. Their circuits clearly crossed, the rest of the robots finally fritz out, and collapse on the parents' bed, ensuring that Mom and Dad's big night out will be a l-o-o-o-n-g one.

Next time they want to party, the parents should borrow Rosy from the Jetsons!

In yet another takeoff on the sorcerer's apprentice premise, (in which the enchanted broom can't stop carrying pails of water until the magician's castle is flooded), Sean Taylor's Robot Rumpus (Anderson Press, 2013) gives the runaway gizmo storyline another go. Although it's no competition for Tomie dePaola's Caldecott classic, Strega Nona, in which noodle-head Big Anthony tries out the forbidden magic pasta pot and fills the town with spaghetti, Taylor's bumbling bot tale is ingeniously illustrated by Ross Collin's wittily inventive robots which will definitely switch on kids' autonomic giggle boxes.

Charge up the giggle batteries with this one along with Mac Barnett's funny and Frankensteinian Oh No!: Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World (see review here) or John Scieszka and David Shannon's Robot Zot! (review here).