Runaway Robot

Product Information

Alfie ‘swerves’ both school and the Limb Lab, where he should be going to learn how to control his state-of-the-art new hand, by hanging out at the airport.

Runaway Robot | BookTrust

He's convinced that he's the latest technology, when he's actually nearly one hundred years old and ready for the scrap heap. Runaway Robot’ is a children’s comedy adventure novel that reads a bit like David Walliams reworking ‘The Iron Giant’. No matter how exciting, zany and surprising the action, you can always be sure that Frank Cottrell-Boyce will build his stories on real human emotions, and that’s as true of this brilliantly funny, original and touching novel as of any of its predecessors.Alfie is a BAME amputee - a much under-represented people in children’s literature and the supporting characters are also child amputees who are the victims of war (this ties in nicely as these children have all been fitted with next-gen prosthetic limbs from the Limb Lab). Join our community to get personalised book suggestions, extracts straight to your inbox, 10% off RRPs, and to change children’s lives.

Literacy Shed Plus - Teaching Resources Made Easy

His books have been shortlisted for a multitude of prizes, including the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, the Whitbread Children's Fiction Award (now the Costa Book Award) and the Roald Dahl Funny Prize and Millions, his debut children's novel, won the CILIP Carnegie Medal 2004. But Alfie is unhappy that other children at the Limb Lab are able to grasp their new limbs when he cannot. The photographs in the book, were created by my friends and neighbours - Carl Hunter and Claire Heaney. Rory Rooney is unremarkable in almost everything, apart from his capacity to attract the attention of the school bully.For me that made the story feel more real and added to the warmth I felt about this compelling tale. A robot vacuum knocking over a stepladder, causing untold injuries to the human that was climbing it?

Runaway Robot by Frank Cottrell Boyce | Goodreads

But wouldn't mind having it in my classroom library for children who are particularly interested in robots.I think this would be great to have in the classroom as it would be especially entertaining for any children with an interest in robots, or it would be a great opening book to start a topic on technology, as this is a big feature of the book throughout. Eric is a brilliant character and the timing of a number of his lines had me snorting with laughter. This funny and fast paced book also has an aspect of mystery as we experience Alfie's memories of his accident coming back to him. Robot Eric, unfailingly polite, kind and helpful and trying to explain himself through misremembered jokes is an iron man for our time. Cottrell-Boyce doesn’t fall into the same trap of using lazy stereotypes that Walliams does, but his characters don’t live at all.