The Wild Robot
by Peter Brown
Middle-Grade, Science-Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Animals
Can a robot survive in the wilderness? When robot Roz opens her eyes for the first time, she discovers that she is all alone on a remote, wild island. She has no idea how she got there or what her purpose is–but she knows she needs to survive. After battling a violent storm and escaping a vicious bear attack, she realizes that her only hope for survival is to adapt to her surroundings and learn from the island’s unwelcoming animal inhabitants. As Roz slowly befriends the animals, the island starts to feel like home–until, one day, the robot’s mysterious past comes back to haunt her. From bestselling and award-winning author and illustrator Peter Brown comes a heartwarming and action-packed novel about what happens when nature and technology collide.
Recommendations from Common Sense Media
Age Recommendation: 8+
What Parents Need to Know:
Parents need to know that The Wild Robot by Peter Brown (Mr. Tiger Goes Wild) is a middle-grade novel about a shipwrecked robot who learns to survive by observing and befriending the animals native to her new island. Set in an indeterminate future when crates of robots are carted on cargo ships and climate change kicks up violent storms, the story mixes artificial intelligence with wilderness survival. Though Roz is a robot and doesn’t have emotions, she’s thoughtfully observant and programmed to be helpful and kind. With some possibly disturbing scenes with guns, dismemberment of robots, and death in the wild, the story’s also filled with lessons about kindness and pluck. The chapters are short and punchy, and the book is dotted with Brown’s appealing illustrations.
Educational Value: 4/5
Because the robot observes the animals and tries to learn from them to survive, there’s information about animal behavior such as camouflage, although this information’s mixed with fiction in which the animals are occasionally anthropomorphized.
Positive Messages: 5/5
There are ways to survive adversity, and it helps to observe animals who’ve adapted to the environment. When others are against you, you can change their hearts by being kind and helpful. We can all use our various strengths to help one another.
Positive Role Models: 5/5
Roz figures out how to survive. She’s observant and studies animal behavior. She’s kind and adopts and raises an orphaned gosling. Though the animals on the island are originally afraid of her and consider her a monster, she wins them over by helping them and being kind. Roz takes action to help the animals survive a brutal winter.
Violence & Scariness: 3/5
Gun violence in several scenes: A farmer shoots and kills a goose character; the recon robots sent to retrieve the main robot have guns and use them in an extended chase scene; and the animals shoot a hole through one of the recon robots, and it’s pictured graphically in the art. The gosling adopted by the robot is initially orphaned when the robot falls off a cliff and rocks fall; several animals are also found frozen to death in winter. Dismemberment of robots: Robots break apart when they first crash onto the island; Roz loses a foot and at the end loses all limbs; recon robots get blown apart. Bear attack on robot. Fire in woods.
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