THE LOST ROBOT

A story of home lost and found.

The protagonist at the center of this tale isn’t so much lost as rejected. Abandoned and broken in a futuristic world’s dump, the robot doesn’t know where it came from, but it knows it doesn’t belong here. Setting out on a quest, it passes a woman wearing an eyepatch, a baby on her back, sorting through rubbish. These human characters, rendered in mangalike style, initially go unmentioned in the text but will play a crucial role at book’s end. First, however, the robot spies a billboard advertising a similar robot as a child’s “new best friend!” This sight sparks memories of when the robot was given to a boy, and panel illustrations depict the pair playing together affectionately. Visual clues soon reveal that the robot was discarded when the boy’s parents gave their son an updated version, a fate confirmed when our protagonist sees the boy with his new robot and then returns to the dump. Much time has passed; the baby seen earlier is now a child who finds the robot and claims it. A heartwarming ending—away from the dump, at the mother and child’s rustic home—uses expressive color to depict the love and joy of found family; Todd-Stanton balances text and art effectively, trusting readers to make connections as they pick up on hints in the images. Human characters vary in skin tone.

A tale worth finding—and cherishing.