ROBOT AND RED

In Kimbril’s middle-grade novel, a disgruntled nanobot eager to leave a human body reluctantly teams up with a red blood cell.

Robot has the artificial intelligence to think and feel for himself. But the tiny, medical-grade nanobot is still at the mercy of 12-year-old Jack, who controls Robot’s hardware via a smartphone app. During his middle school’s STEM Fair, Jack shows off Robot under a microscope lens. After an accident, Robot gains control of his titanium self, only to wind up entering Jack’s body through a cut. He soon bumps into Red, a red blood cell who is one among many others in the blood vessels. Red sports a bubbly personality in glaring contrast to Robot, who’s perpetually disgusted by humans and all the things their bodies do. But Robot needs help—his battery is draining, and he can’t power up unless he finds his way back outside. Robot and Red, and a few others they bump into, embark on a search for viable exits before Robot’s battery hits the dreaded zero. Kimbril deftly blends educational material with good-natured humor. Robot’s endless complaints are consistently amusing, as when he begs, “Someone please delete me!” or calls Jack a “fleshy bag of meat.” Red is an effective, upbeat foil for Robot’s dourness. As the duo comes up with means of escape, readers learn all about the human body; Robot and Red navigate the heart’s atria, dodge frisbee-like platelets, and debate which bodily structure (such as the digestive system) offers the best way out. Robot’s depleting battery isn’t his only problem—he certainly doesn’t want to admit that he’ll miss Red when they say goodbye. Many of the author’s gleefully cartoonish illustrations preface chapters and include such delights as an angry, mohawk-wearing germ and a weird macrophage (they’re described as “freaky tentacled-alien-looking dudes”).

Human anatomy is rendered outright hilarious in this smart, rib-tickling tale.