6 Beep-Tastic Robot Picture Books

Doug Unplugs on the Farm, by Dan Yaccarino
Doug is an appealing, curious robot boy, whom Dan Yaccarino introduced in Doug Unplugged. In that book, Doug’s robot parents leave him home for the day to download his assignment to learn about cities. Instead, he follows a pigeon out into the actual city for some quality offline, hands-on learning. In the sequel, Doug’s parents drive him to the countryside to visit the grandbots. They tell Doug to plug in and download information about the country, because “Doug’s parents wanted him to be the smartest robot ever.” Then trouble strikes—an errant flock of sheep charges across the road, causing the car to become stuck in the ditch. But Doug sees this as an opportunity to unplug and gain some hands-on knowledge about farms. He meets a farm girl and milks a cow, picks an apple, figures out how to get a tractor without gas to move with the help of a horse, and gets his family back on the road again. Yaccarino is never heavy-handed, but the message is clear—go offline already, and let the kids have some unstructured time in the actual, not virtual world.

Sometimes I Forget You’re a Robot, by Sam Brown
In Sometimes I Forget You’re a Robot, a little boy’s dreams come true when a robot lands in his yard one night. The boy has all kinds of ideas for adventures they can have, such as a deep-sea dive or a trip to the moon. But when he proposes this to the robot, all he gets is the response “Beep.” Disappointed, the boy says, “All you do is beep beep beep like a toy. You probably can’t even help me finish my tree house.” The robot proves him wrong, and shows that a robot comes in handy even if it can’t fly, swim, or say anything besides “beep.”

No-Bot the Robot with No Bottom, by Sue Hendra
Bernard the robot has an unusual problem. One day when he finishes swinging at the park, he discovers that his bottom has disappeared. This sends him on a quest to find his missing bottom. He questions a bird who used his bottom as a nest, a bear who used it as a drum, an elephant who used it as a hat, and more. Despondent, still without a bottom, Bernard can’t even sit down to contemplate his plight. Luckily, his bottom soon turns up, after proving the myriad unexpected uses for a robot bottom. This book is sure to give the kids a good case of the giggles.

Rabbit and Robot: The Sleepover, by Cece Bell
Rabbit is spirited, organized, bossy, and at times hysterical. Who would make a perfect buddy for him? Logical, calm Robot, of course. In the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award-winning Rabbit and Robot: The Sleepover, Rabbit has a sleepover with his best buddy Robot all planned out. First they will make pizza, then they will watch TV, then they will play Go Fish, and finally they will go to bed, precisely in that order. A regular friend might balk at the bossy list, but Robot is always game—and always has his own Robot perspective to bring to activities that make the unexpected happen, from a pizza with nuts and bolts for toppings to a missing remote control that turns up in a character’s ear.

Robots, Robots Everywhere!, by Sue Fliess and Bob Staake
Bob Staake’s energetic illustrations and Sue Fliess’s fun rhymes make Robots, Robots Everywhere! a hit. The pictures combine retro charm—including mod-looking stars and 1950’s-style wind-up robots—with up-to-the minute inventions, including a Mars rover, a GPS-enabled tractor, and a vacuuming Roomba-type robot (“Under couches, over rugs, /Vacuum robots have no plugs.”) This book reminds us that robots are fun both in their imaginary 1950’s sci-fi incarnations and in their real, practical modern-day applications.

Tin, by Chris Judge
I can’t be the only person who’s ever fantasized about a house-cleaning robot, and not just one that vacuums the floor, but one more like the Jetsons’ Rosie, who can cook dinner and scrub toilets. That sort of robot might be still in the future, but in Tin, Chris Judge imagines a robot who can perform another important function: babysitting his little sister. Tin’s mombot asks him to watch his little sister Nickel, a task Tin thinks will be no problem. But before he knows it, Nickel grabs onto a balloon and floats away over the town, forcing Tin and his trusty robodog Zinc to pursue her in the hopes of bringing her back before his mom notices she’s missing.
What are your kids’ favorite books about robots?