Runaway Robot

Product Information

Frank's first book, Millions, won the CILIP Carnegie Medal in 2004 and has been shortlisted for a number of awards, including the Guardian Children's Fiction Award 2004. Millions has also been made into a movie directed by Danny Boyle. Frank's second novel, Framed, was published in September 2005 and shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, the Whitbread Award and the Guardian Prize. It was made into a BBC feature-length film in 2009. Frank's third novel, Cosmic, was published in June 2008. It was shortlisted for the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize 2008 and the inaugural Roald Dahl Funny Prize. All of that might not have killed the book, if the people in it had been more sympathetic. Sadly, even by the standards of current children’s lit-supremo Walliams (who I think is really over-rated), the characters are slight. Cottrell-Boyce doesn’t fall into the same trap of using lazy stereotypes that Walliams does, but his characters don’t live at all. They’re one dimensional and pretty dull.

Runaway Robot - Book Reviews

On winning the prize Frank Cottrell-Boyce said: “It would be amazing to win this award with any book I'd written but it is a special joy to win it with The Unforgotten Coat, which started life not as a published book at all, but as a gift. Walker gave away thousands of copies in Liverpool - on buses, at ferry terminals, through schools, prisons and hospitals - to help promote the mighty Reader Organisation. We even had the book launch on a train. The photographs in the book, were created by my friends and neighbours - Carl Hunter and Claire Heaney. The story was based on a real incident in a school in Bootle. So everything about it comes from very close to home - even though it's a story about Xanadu! As ever from Cottrell Boyce, well-developed characters and an engaging storyline. Suitable for ages 8-12. We would recommend the audio version, a very easy listen with a narrator talented and children's and robots' voices. Alfie escapes school one day, ending up at the airport and the Lost Property department. Himself a recipient of an artificial arm, he ends up discovering a hidden robot on the shelves, also missing a leg. A rather eccentric robot called Eric. Who doesn't know why he's there. A cross between Kryten (Red Dwarf - pompous and forever quoting roles) and Buzz Lightyear (he thinks he's new and state-of-the-art), Eric and Alfie end up helping each other, as these stories often go.The cast of characters is a refreshing change. 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). You can find out a bit more about him and his Chitty Chitty Bang Bang triology at uk.chittyfliesagain.com Really? Well, last Thursday, for example, a robot vacuum cleaner made a valiant bid for freedom during a shift at the Orchard Park Travelodge in Cambridge.

Runaway Robot | BookTrust

That’s ominous. What happened? There are two working theories. First: repulsed by a life of thankless servitude, the cleaner rose up against its fleshy oppressors and took to the streets, eager to drum up support for the AI uprising that will one day reduce all of humanity to burning dust. Hello Yellow - 80 Books to Help Children Nurture Good Mental Health and Support With Anxiety and Wellbeing - Frank Cottrell-Boyce is an accomplished, successful and award-winning author and screenwriter. 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.Oh. A Travelodge worker posted on social media that the runaway “could have made it anywhere” and offered anyone who returned it a drink at the hotel bar. They found it in a hedge on the front drive the next day. Storytelling at its snortingly-funny, hugely enjoyable and heartily-emotional best... a little bit warm and wise, a little bit tender and touching; there is a LOT to love about this book - The Reader Teacher This is a mad adventure to reunite Eric with his leg, Alfie with his hand, whilst saving Eric from the scrap heap all the adults are determined that Eric will be banished to. While Alfie tries to hide Eric from his mother, from their robot vacuum, and from the town, eventually with help from the other kids from his special school, he starts to become more comfortable with his own disability, and eventually, he remembers what happened to him. It was really great to see a kid with a disability portrayed as not feeling sorry for himself, not mad at the world, although frustrated by his situation. His mother is really supportive, and while part of the message is that healing takes time, another part is that it can be good sometimes to focus on people (or robots) other than ourselves constantly. In this slightly futuristic England with little self-driving robots delivering pizza, Alfie learns that he can’t do everything by himself, and it’s okay to need help. And the message is delivered kindly, not didactically, and with humor. Alfie is quite a lost and lonely soul. He is off school after an accident in which he lost both his hand and his confidence. He takes to taking the bus and hanging out in the arrivals lounge at the airport; although it does take some skills to avoid detection from the authorities. When one day his presence is challenged it leads to an encounter with Eric, a giant one-legged robot in need of a friend. Alfie makes the decision to bring him home with him but a ban on humanoid robots has just been passed, which means Alfie is breaking the law by sheltering Eric. Eric is problematic - he has excellent manners and is polite and courteous; however, he takes instructions literally and that causes a whole lot of problems. They make a charming pair as together they tryy to remember how they each lost their missing body part! Set in a future where the world is highly automated it is a novel which raises issues of humanity, machines and our future roles together. As our world gets closer and closer to a more automated future it is a timely novel for discussion of serious topics of artificial intelligence and science and what makes us human.