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Overview
An inventive tale by a beloved Hans Christian Andersen Award winner celebrates our differences—and the joys of inclusion—through the lens of artificial intelligence.
From the boundless imagination of David Almond comes a thought-provoking question, packaged in a lively illustrated chapter book: what if a robot went to school? When a new boy joins their class, everyone thinks he’s . . . odd. George doesn’t behave like other kids. He doesn’t think like other kids. But he’s great at football and snacking, and that’s what matters to Dan and Maxie and friends, who resolve to make George feel welcome. Over time, they learn that he’s just like them, in most ways, except one: George is a robot, part of an ambitious new experiment, with sinister people bent on destroying him. When his lab pulls him out of school, can George’s new friends recover him—and set him free? Told in David Almond’s signature rollicking narrative style, this poignant tale about what it means to be human, paired with warm and funny black-and-white illustrations, will inspire children to think and giggle in equal measure.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781536226942 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Candlewick Press |
| Publication date: | 05/03/2022 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 64 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
| Age Range: | 8 - 12 Years |
About the Author
David Almond is the highly acclaimed author of many award-winning novels for children, such as The Boy Who Swam with Piranhas, The Tale of Angelino Brown, Skellig, Clay, Kit’s Wilderness, War Is Over, and The Color of the Sun. His numerous awards include the Carnegie Medal and the Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest international prize for children’s authors. David Almond lives in England.
Marta Altés was born in Barcelona and studied graphic design there before becoming an author and illustrator. Her many books include My Grandpa, I Am An Artist, and NO! Marta Altés now lives in London.
I grew up in a large Catholic family in Felling-on-Tyne: four sisters and one brother. I always knew I’d be a writer —I wrote stories and stitched them into little books. I had an uncle who was a printer, and in his printing shop I learned my love of black words on white pages. I loved our local library and dreamed of seeing books with my name on the cover on its shelves. I also dreamed of playing for Newcastle United (and I still wait for the call!). There was much joy in my childhood, but also much sadness: a baby sister died when I was seven; my dad died when we were all still young; my mum was always seriously ill with arthritis. But it was a childhood, like all childhoods, that provided everything a writer needs, and it illuminates and informs everything I write.
After school I read English and American literature. When I graduated I became a teacher — long holidays, short days, just perfect for a writer. After five years I gave up the job and lived in a commune in rural Norfolk where I wrote a long adult novel that was rejected by every U.K. publisher. I had two collections of short stories published by the tiny IRON Press. I started another adult novel, put it aside, and suddenly, out of the blue, I found myself writing Skellig. It was as if the story had been waiting for me, and once I began, it seemed to write itself. I hadn’t expected to write a children’s novel, but in some way it was the natural outcome of everything I’d done before, and was the stepping-stone to everything I’ve done since.
For years, I was hardly published and hardly anyone knew about me apart from a handful of keen fans. And I made just about no money at all from writing. That didn’t really matter to me. I’d keep on writing, no matter what. Then I wrote Skellig, and everything changed. I began to sell lots of books, to be translated into many languages, to travel, to win lots of prizes. I’ve written a number of novels after Skellig, including Kit’s Wilderness, The Fire-Eaters, Clay and A Song for Ella Grey. There have been stage versions of the novels, and films and an opera are on their way.
Three Things You Might Not Know About Me:
1. I love Japanese food — except for the thing I was given once that looked like an alien’s brain.
2. My first TV appearance was as an altar boy in a televised mass when I was eleven.
3. My grandfather was a bookie (he took bets on horse races). His advice? “Never bet.” He also told me, “Never read novels. They’re all just lies.”
Read an Excerpt
1
At the start we think he’s just another kid like us.
Of course we do. What else would we think? He turns up on a Monday morning, last week of the Easter term, in the middle of assembly. Mrs. Hoolihan’s leading it. We can see she’s excited about something or other. She’s wearing a green tweed suit and shiny black high heels, and her hair’s all dyed and curled. She keeps looking at the door at the back of the hall, like she expects it to open.
She says all the usual stuff about how terrible bullying is.
“Don’t you agree?” she asks us.
Of course we do.
“Yes, Mrs. Hoolihan! Yes, Mrs. Hoolihan!” What else would we say?
I’m sitting with Maxie Carr, like always. We’re doing that thing where we grunt everything like we’re animals or as if we don’t know what words are at all.
“E I OO I A!” we grunt.
Maxie drops his shoulders and lets his hands dangle like he’s some kind of ape.
“Yes, children,” she goes on. “We have to be kind to each other, especially those who don’t have our own good fortune, or those who have been through trouble. Aren’t I right, children?”
“Yes, Mrs. Hoolihan.”
“E I OO I A!”
She looks at the door again. Nothing. She blinks and frowns and grins and taps her finger in the air and looks at Mr. McKenna, who starts banging away at the piano. Mrs. Imani is there as well, with the little orchestra she’s put together. They saw their fiddles, squeak their recorders, smack their tambourines.
Mrs. Hoolihan spreads her arms wide.
“Now liberate your voices, children!” she calls. “Sing up! Sing up!”
She tilts her head toward the ceiling.
“Raise your voices to the heavens above!”
And off we go with the song we sing every Monday morning:
“All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.”
The little ones at the front sing high and sweet like always. Me and Maxie do that thing where we sing the words as we’re breathing in, so we sound like ghosts or like we’re about to croak:
“O I I A U E U. U OR O AY EM OR.”
Some kids around us start to giggle. Our teacher, Mr. Sage, who’s sitting at the end of our row, starts to glare.
Mrs. Hoolihan wafts her arms, conducting us all. Then the door at the back suddenly swings open. She jumps in surprise, then spreads her arms in welcome as a woman and a boy step into the hall. Mrs. Hoolihan waves at us to keep singing and waves at the little orchestra to keep playing. She waves at the woman and the boy. She indicates the PE benches like she’s telling them to sit down there. They do that. She wafts her hands at them like she’s asking them to sing along too. They don’t do that. The woman and the boy sit there with their mouths shut. They stare out at us all. They don’t move.
At last we get toward the final “Lord God made them all.” By now, me and Maxie are grunting like two daft dying pigs. Mr. McKenna gives a couple more twirls and thumps on the piano keys. The fiddlers, recorder players and tambourine bangers come to a halt.
Mrs. Hoolihan claps her hands and tells us that was oh so wonderful, children.
“Yes!” she calls, beaming with delight. “The Lord God did indeed make them all!”
She bends down and whispers something to the woman on the PE bench. The woman smiles sweetly, and they whisper together for a while. Then Mrs. Hoolihan shakes the hand of the boy, and she brings him to the front so we can all get a good look at him and he can get a good look at us.
“This,” she tells us, “is a new boy.”
She beams at us. This is what she’s been waiting for.
We all stare at the boy. He’s very pale. He’s very tidy. He’s smaller than me. He’s wearing navy blue trousers and a light blue shirt and polished shoes. His pale hair is brushed close to his scalp.
“His name,” says Mrs. Hoolihan, “is George. Say hello to George, children.”
“Hello, George,” goes everybody.
“E O OR,” go me and Maxie.
George says nothing. He doesn’t look nervous. He doesn’t smile.
“Welcome, George,” says Mrs. Hoolihan, “to Darwin Avenue Primary Academy.”
He stares at her, then stares at us.
“We were expecting George last week,” she says. She widens her eyes and beams at him. “But it seems you weren’t ready, George, were you? But here you are now, a treat for us all in the last week of term.”
George says nothing.
She bends down and peers at him.
“He’s rather splendid, isn’t he, children?”
“Yes, Miss,” say some of us.
“E I,” go me and Maxie.
“Excellent. Now then, children. George will only be with us for a short time, so make him feel welcome. Make sure he knows all the ropes and the ins and outs and the how’s your fathers and the ups and downs. I know you will do that. Will you do that, children?”
“Yes, Miss!”
“E I!”
Mrs. Hoolihan beams at us.
“Excellent. Make sure that his time here is something he will always remember. He will join Mr. Sage’s class.”
Me and Maxie nudge each other. That’s our class.
“Now then, our bright and beautiful children, and our wise and wonderful teachers,
off to your classes you go.”