The Robot Book by Heather Brown - Review and Giveaway

Gear ratios, circular pitch, mesh, RPM -- lessons from my college Mechanical Design class flashed before my eyes when I first previewed The Robot Book by Heather Brown. Why? This board book contains a bolt, a nut and several interactive cardboard gears. And it's hard not to think of all those lessons when I see two gears mesh together.

The Robot Book by Heather Brown; Accord Publishing (October 2010); ISBN 9780740797255; 12 pages
Book Source: Review copy from publisher

Now, this is not at all an informational book about gears, machines, or how they work, but more of an entertaining "touch and play" perfect to engage toddlers' minds. In my experience, kids love interactive toys and books -- anything with moving parts or flaps that open. Kids love robots, too. The Robot Book combines both these kid friendly elements into a short and sweet book about a robot's parts...mouth, eyes, arms and something else special on the inside. The book reminds young and old of an ever so important message...it's what's inside that counts! Preview the entire book in the following YouTube video.



Our robot obsession is well documented. See this robot book and craft. Or this robot series. Or this robot website. The Robot Book is probably one of the simplest robot books we've read together, and probably the most entertaining from an interactive standpoint. The book doesn't contain a whole lot of text, but my toddler son really loves exploring the pages and talking about the parts. It's pure fun! So much so, that I'm thinking about buying him a set of actual toy gears for Christmas so that he can tinker to his little heart's delight. And, not surprisingly, he loves the packaging, too. The publisher inserted cardboard inserts to help protect the book's moving components. My son has spent quite a lot of time trying to figure out how to reinsert all those cutout inserts so they fit around all the different parts. I'm sure the publisher never intended those inserts to provide so much entertainment, but they do! I'm happy to report that the book's construction has held up pretty well to all his fiddling around. No gears have been removed yet (though sometimes the gears don't mesh properly). That's OK though. It's a good challenge to test his problem solving skills. I may have a little budding engineer in the family. :)



Thanks to Accord Publishing, one Brimful Curiosities reader will win a copy of The Robot Book and a copy of another Accord favorite: When I’m Big!

To enter, leave any comment relevant to this post. Or, do you have a favorite robot book?

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Thanks to Accord for providing me with a review copy of The Robot Book. (I am an Amazon affiliate and may receive a very small commission for products purchased through my Amazon links. View my full disclosure statement for more information about my reviews.)