A story about bravery, community, hope, and new beginnings. Learn how the animals of the wild band together to get rid of the evils of technology...
What is this story about?
One day a robot named Roz washes up on an island in the middle of nowhere. Roz meets the locals on the island, which happen to be animals. The animals don't take to Roz so kindly at first, thinking he is a monster. Roz, however, is determined to fit in. The book follows along Roz's journey as he befriends the animals, becomes a mother, saves lives, and defeats the other robots, all with the help of his new animal family.
Meet the Author:
Peter Brown
Peter Brown is a bestselling author, Caldecott Honor Award winner, New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book Award winner, writing many popular children's books. His ideas behind this book stem from his interest in robots and nature from a young age. Visit the author's website, http://www.peterbrownstudio.com, to find out more about him!
My Critique/Review:
I absolutely loved this book. I was so engaged, intrigued, and glued to the book, eager to see the next event that Roz had to overcome. With every flip of the page, a new, exciting, and most of the time problematic situation arose for Roz. This book is filled with adventure, victory, community, and the effects of technology that makes it so exciting to read. I think this is a great middle grades book that will hook any reader. Lastly, this book meets my expectations of a good children's book. It is entertaining, fun, and incorporates a good message, which are all important aspects of a good book. This book represents the importance of family, community, and being kind to one another. It is exciting and I think it would really motivate students to read.
Thoughts:
Throughout the book, the author's use of imagery, patterns, and personification really intrigued me and drew me in. The author did an amazing job of visually depicting the characters, events, and scenery with great use of details. On page 142, he writes: "Nettle slashed at Roz's body, and Thorn began wrestling with her foot. He grabbed the foot with both paws and forced it up from the ground. Then, with every ounce of his strength, he twisted the foot around" (Brown, 2016). This is a great example of how visual the author's words are. The author uses personification such as: "A hurricane roared and raged through the night" (Brown, 2016, pg. 1) or "they were swallowed up by the waves" (Brown, 2016, pg. 1), to aid in the dramatic and detailed depiction of events. Patterns are another thing that stood out to me when reading this book. On multiple occasions, the author brings up 'pinecones'. Pinecones were repeatedly referred to, from a pinecone falling on Roz's head on page 19, to Roz throwing pinecones at the bears as she runs for her life on page 35, to the animals pelting RECO 1 with "flaming pinecones" during the chase for Roz on page 245 (Brown, 2016). This use of re-occurring patterns is a tactic that the author may use to revisit certain events, evoke an emotion, or create a circular flow within the book. Furthermore, his direct line of connection to the readers makes this book more personal. Throughout the book, the author would stop to say things like: "I should remind you, reader" (Brown, 2016, pg. 24) or "as you know, reader.." (Brown, 2016, pg. 42). He did this to tell the reader a backstory, an important detail that was not shared but is important to understand the story, or to foreshadow an event.
Foreshadowing is another big idea that this book evoked for me. The main concept of this book is the idea of technology and nature coexisting. As we live in a world with technology that is advancing at rapid speeds, I think this book may be foreshadowing into our future world. I think the author wants us to connect to this book through technology and wonder, what if we advance so much that this becomes reality? In the book Brightbill discusses the migration and says, "Some robots were really small, and some were really big. They moved things and cleaned things and built things and did every kind of job you can think of!" (Brown, 2016, Pg. 209). After reading this, I could not help but think that this could really be our future. We could start to see robots and machines producing things and making human jobs easier, but would this really be a good world to live in?
Furthermore, agency is another term that stood out to me in this book. In this book, Roz is an example of a character that has agency (Vaughn et al., 2019). Roz is able to engage with the other characters of the book, come up with prosperous ideas, and take action. One example of Roz showing agency is when Roz takes control and makes lodges for the other animals during the cold winter. On page 84, Roz comes up with the idea of fire to keep warm (Brown, 2016). Later in the book, she sees the need of the community to stay warm during the winter, so she takes her idea of fire, as well as, learning to build from Mr. Beaver, and applies it to helping the others. Roz gathers the help of all the animals by asking them to collect anything useful they can find and with her "expertise and the small army of helpers", Roz is able to build the lodges in no time (Brown, 2016, pg. 182). Roz is able to develop this sense of agency from her experiences, observations, and interactions with the members of the community. On page 84, Roz mentions her experience sliding down the mountain peak, creating hot sparks as she went (Brown, 2016). She then uses this knowledge to experiment and create fire, which as you know, is a big factor in the community's survival later in the book. Furthermore, Roz's interactions and observations of Mr. Beaver building her lodge on page 83, teaches Roz how to build (Brown, 2016). So, by Roz observing others, building on her experiences, and interacting with the other animals, she is able to develop her sense of agency, which will serve her and the community members well in the end.
Lastly, as a future teacher, I began to brainstorm ways that I could incorporate this book into my classroom. One way that I thought would be fun is to have students research an animal that either this book talked about or one they could imagine living on the island in the book. I would have students research their animals' habitat, what it eats, its seasonal patterns, and its family patterns, as family is a big theme in the book. To add a fun twist on it, I could also have students come up with how they think their chosen animal would have helped Roz as she became familiar with the island. Just as the beavers helped Roz build a home and the deer helped her plant a garden, students could be creative with how their animal would aid Roz. I think students would really enjoy learning more about a certain animal and teaching their classmates.
Making Connections:
As I read the class article, "Story as World Making", I began to re-consider stories and their purpose. Stories really do help us make sense of the world, our experiences, and create community. One part of this reading that really stood out to me was the quote: "Transformation occurs as children carry their experiences and inquiries with literature and story back into their worlds and lives" (Short, 2012, pg.13). This quote immediately connected me back to the book, The Wild Robot. How this book describes technology and a world where technology has almost taken over, really made me stop and question our world. Could our world end up looking like the world in this book? From experiencing how a world with robots looks through reading this book, it makes me question and hope this does not become our reality. I have never looked at technology as a negative thing until reading this book. It has made me come to realize that if we keep advancing rapidly, we could create a world where we are in over our heads. If this world were to become reality, why would we need humans anymore?
Useful Links:
Teaching Ideas: https://teachingandtechnologyideas.weebly.com/wild-robot.html
Teaching Ideas: https://teachingandtechnologyideas.weebly.com/wild-robot.html
Animal Webcams: cams.allaboutbirds.org/all-cams/
Webcam: http://www.wildearth.tv/
Real life science robots: https://www.livescience.com/topics/robots
How NASA uses robots: http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/robotics/home/#.VubjQYwrI00
Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv4gwCEF9Lk
Sources:
Brown, P. (2016) The Wild Robot. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company.
Peter Brown. Photo of Author Peter Brown. Printed from goodreads, 2019, Retrieved
Short, K.G (2012). Story as World Making. Language Arts, Volume 90 Number 1, 9-17.