The Wild Robot
Futuristic tech in the wild
Hey Team Snarf,
I’ve put this pair of books off for a while because I wasn’t sure where to start. They’re just incredibly thoughtful and well-realized. The rare books that I think I enjoyed at least as much (and quite possibly more) than Leo.
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Now onto…
The Series: The Wild Robot (two books for now, third one coming next year)
The Author/Illustrator: Peter Brown
Length/Picture Density: 230 pages, pictures throughout
Readers of the Snarf know what a chapter book looks like. About ten chapters, likable kid protagonist, maybe some superpowers or at least a mystery. Happy ending with an agreeable ethos reinforced. Not complaining, obviously (would be a very odd thing for me to complain about), but that basic formula describes a large percent of the books we’ve looked at here.
And then there’s The Wild Robot.
Peter Brown seems unconcerned with what chapter books are supposed to be. He had something to say, and that thing was The Wild Robot, and its equally stunning sequel, The Wild Robot Escapes.
The story begins with a robot, programmed to learn from its environment and adapt accordingly, washing up on an island that is filled with wildlife but no human occupants. Instead of learning the habits and preferences of a human household, like its robotic brethren, it learns to live among the animals.
That all feels allegorical and like some sort of statement or thought experiment on the modern world, and there’s certainly some aspect of that here, but once you’re in, you’re probably less concerned with the high-level statements and more wrapped up in the story itself.
The robot, Roz, develops a relationship with the wild that is something akin to how we would want technology to integrate into our world if we gave it a little thought. She doesn’t take over the island or force anyone to do anything, but she does provide shelter and warmth, and other changes that life better for the animals there.
The story moves beyond the basic scenario of “robot in the wild” when Roz adopts a goose, and their relationship becomes the emotional center of the story. Roz treats the fledging with such care and concern that it really didn’t occur to me to chuckle at the thought of a robot raising a goose.
That said, the juxtaposition of Roz in her surroundings becomes all the more pronounced and important as the book goes on. While the animals there live their lives as they know how to do, Roz contemplates parts of their existence that they mostly take for granted. Her programming makes her highly adaptive, and in a way she becomes more wild than the wild.
Somehow, to me at least, none of it feels forced. So many stories have a destination in mind, whether that’s a plot convergence, a culminating image, or a moral-enforcing outcome, and have to take some clunky steps to get there. Maybe I just missed those in The Wild Robot, but if I did, it was because the tension and beauty of the story and illustrations hid them well enough.
The books don’t get wrapped up in gore or tragedy —they never twist the knife, making the reader suffer through a creature’s last moments — but there is death and the uneasy balance of predator and prey. Winter is tough for a lot of animals and they don’t all make it.
While we’re here, the sequel has some of the same elements, despite its more human-built environments, namely a family that is very prominent in the first part of the book in which the mother passed away sometime ago. Just something to know for especially sensitive kids.
What we don’t begin to learn until the end of the first book is what kind of world produced Roz. We get a glimpse of that in the final act of the first book and then it becomes the setting of the second one. Here we get the flip side of the jungle in the tech-ed out city that Roz comes from.
Brown avoids the ever-tempting dystopian portrayal of a world consumed by heartless technology, but it’s also clear that Roz has evolved into something different and more special than other robots through her experiences in the wild.
He has a picture book, Mr. Tiger Goes Wild, that touches on many of the same themes. In that one, a tiger, who lives in a highly civilized world where everyone is an animal, gets more and more in touch with his animal side to the point that he goes and lives in a jungle away from people. After some time in the wild, he finds that he doesn’t want that to be his full-time life either. He needs a balance of being wild and being civilized.
It’s a short and sweet picture book, not a long, intense chapter book, but it clearly comes from the same place as The Wild Robot of seeking the right mix of nature and civilization.
I’m guessing kids will have a wide range of reactions to The Wild Robot. It’s gripping and digestible, so once you get into it, you’ll probably be able to keep the momentum going, but in sections it’s challenging and emotional. As for me, the Wild Robot and The Wild Robot Escapes are among the two best books I’ve read to Leo.