Customer Reviews

The Robots Are Coming: And Other Problems

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This book is funny, and well drawn, and full of surprises, and it works on a few levels at once. I like the slightly edgy feel of the work, but I'm a slightly edgy ex-kid. I don't see why the sugary books should get all the glory... why not try a book that presumes you're intelligent AND like a good laugh?

More like this, please.

This is a beautifully illustrated, funny book. Rash's art is colorful and inventive, and the accompanying "problems" are clever and intelligent. This a book for both children and adults to read and enjoy together!

The Robots are Coming was a Christmas present for my 4-year-old son and even in June it is still such a favorite I had to write a review. We love it. The poetry is catchy and just slightly subversive so as to be hysterical. It holds up fabulously well reading after reading after reading. The illustrations are wonderful and match perfectly. Whoever didn't like this book either didn't get the humor or maybe has a bad relationship with the author! My 4-year-old doesn't understand all the text, and neither does his 3-year-old brother, but they both adore the book. It makes an excellent gift for just about any age.

This is a great book! Original styles of writing, rhyming and artwork are blended together masterfully. The illustrations themselves are so full of detail that they could tell their own story. Each time I read and look through this book, I catch another joke. I can't wait for the next one!

Incredible, edgy, intelligent, manic...
No wonder the Bushies are all in a panic.
Sure there are things cautious parents must edit,
But they should be giving their kids much more credit!

This book has endless humor for the reader as well as the audience, and it encourages creative reading. One of its points is that you make your own fears through your imagination (cautious parents, take note). The book also diffuses the impact of traditional monsters by making them look silly. My daughter and I get many laughs from this, and I can't wait for more from Agent Rash.

Despite reviews to the contrary, this is a great book for kids, especially kids with a sense of humor. My 4-year-old loves it, both the drawings and the poems, and I enjoy reading it to him, which is a nice bonus. The drawings are great, the poems are fun and funny. The subject matter is perhaps a trifle dark (werewolves, the devil, mummies) but treated rather lightly. Highly recommended for little kids who love monsters.

My 3 and 7-year-olds love this book. It is full of charm and creativity. If you want ot listen to little old ladies of both genders, then you can feel free to recoil in horror at the mention of caffeine, pirates, and kissing.

If your kids function well in society and are emotioanlly healthy, they should not be bothered by any poems in this book. Most likely, they'll find them humorous.

My five year old checked this book out from the school library. I found specific poems in the book to be very inappropriate and borderline offensive. For example, one discusses going to hell and the devil stealing your soul. Outside of the fact that I don't want my young child exposed to suggestive language and content, the poems were not well written. I can't think of one good thing to say about this book!

This book has received several bad reviews for being "inappropriate" for children. That's silly. The book is a series of poems and illustrations of things that are supposedly scary to children, including robots, androids (not the same as robots! I did not know this), mummies, werewolves, voodoo, and of course the devil. But the drawings are cartoonish and fun, and the poems are hilarious. They are full of sly humor and clever wordplay, and remind one of Shel Silverstein, but without the undertone of freakiness that some of Silverstein's work sometimes had.

Nothing in this book advocates any kind of bad behavior, and none of its bogeymen are the least bit scary (my kids are 5 and 2, and both love this book). Some of the jokes might only make sense to the adults, however. The one about the devil substitutes the words "hockey stick" for every instance of the letter L, a wink to the time-honored kids' practice of saying "hell" as "h-e-double-hockey-sticks." It's kind of a tongue twister to read, and it had me laughing as I tried to get the words out and keep the meter of the poem.

Most of the time, the phrase "family friendly" means things that are safe and bland and saccharine enough for the youngest children, but that are cloying and unbearable for anyone older than age eight. I prefer it to mean things like "The Incredibles", or Dr. Seuss books like "The Lorax" and "The Sneetches", or this book: works that are safe and appropriate for kids, but that respect the intelligence and sense of humor of adults.

My son was 7 when my mother bought him this book. He loves it. He knows most of the poems by heart and can recite them at will. I was shocked to see people so upset by the X-Ray goggles and the pirate. Surely this is no more violent than a wolf eating a grandmother? It's certainly no darker than your average Shel Silverstein book.

Enjoy the lively verse and buy it if you love poetry and want to give your child an appreciation for it as well.