Little Robot, by Ben Hatke

I’m using this book to check off the Graphic Novel space on my book bingo.

Ben Hatke’s new graphic novel Little Robot (First Second, 2015) is the innocent story of a girl who fixes things and her friendship with one of the fixed. After she accidentally powers up a baby robot lost off the back of a truck (botling? botito? robette?) the two of them strike up a tenuous partnership threatened by their differences and by giant robots who go CHOMP.

Like Hatke’s previous books (Zita the Spacegirl series, Julia’s House for Lost Creatures), this is the place to look for imaginative characters, creative visual storytelling, and casual diversity. It’s full of beautiful two page spreads and of course robots upon robots. Although it’s definitely a graphic novel, Little Robot often reads like a picture book. This would be a great book for early readers who can’t quite make out every word on the page but want the satisfaction of reading by themselves. In fact, all of the robots’ dialog is just machine noises. And isn’t that a fun thing for young readers, to get to decide what the words are? Overall I’m giving this three stars, and I’m eagerly awaiting Hatke’s 2016 graphic novel.