The Robot King [Library Binding]

Brian Selznick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1995 | Age Level: 8 and up

Using mechanical odds and ends as well as their late mother's favorite music box, two motherless Victorian children create an amazing pyrotechnic robot-man who embodies miraculous powers of memory and love.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

From its opening in a moonlit cemetery, where a sister and brother are gathering stones, bits of glass and twigs near their mother's grave, this mannered fantasy is more portentous than rewarding. Out of the items they find, Lucy creates mechanical toys in the attic. There she builds the Robot King, and places their late mother's music box inside of it as a "heart." When the music box suddenly starts playing, the robot comes alive, slips off the table and shatters its knees, which are fashioned from china plates. These porcelain bits are enchanted: whatever machine they fall on (a phone, lamp, radio) takes to the air. Their magic enables the Robot King to fly out the attic window one night; Lucy and her mute brother, Ezra, search for him by following a path of flying machines. They travel to a remote cottage, an abandoned fairground and other suggestive settings, where they have odd adventures-it may escape the target audience that these fragmentary episodes bear some relation to the stories Lucy is said to have told to Ezra about their mother. Selznick (The Houdini Box) appears to be aiming for profundity, but this odd tale feels flat. Ages 8-up.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

Grade 3-5?Lucy and Ezra are motherless. Ezra doesn't talk, and Lucy spends her time making mechanical toys from the treasures her brother collects. She makes a robot, using her mother's music box as a heart, and he comes to life. It isn't long before he begins to assert some independence. A couple of nights later, the robot king dances out the window, and the children search for him the next day. From here the story gets even more fantastic, almost to the point of being surrealistic. At last, after a strange ride above the earth that originates in an old amusement park, the children see their father down below and return home. While the story is original, it becomes convoluted. Readers do not understand why any of it is happening and, as a result, there doesn't seem to be much point to it all. The full-page black-and-white illustrations are intriguing and do a good job of reflecting the somber, detached mood of the story. While the premise is interesting, the characters are not well enough developed for readers to feel involved in what happens to them.?Jane Gardner Connor, South Carolina State Library, Columbia
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Library Binding: 80 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins (September 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060244941
• ISBN-13: 978-0060244941
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,458,089 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Brian Selznick is the illustrator of "Frindle" by Andrew Clements, "Riding Freedom" and "Amelia and Eleanor Go For A Ride," both by Pam Munoz Ryan; as well as his own book "The Houdini Box," winner of the 1993 Texas Bluebonnet Award. Mr. Selznick lives in Brooklyn, New York.