Kids hate it when they're left alone with a Robot Babysitter. And why wouldn't they? You can't argue with a computer program that tells you 8:00 Earth time is bedtime... and then at 8:15 reports that you are in violation of your scheduled routine. "The trouble with you, Babysitter, is that you are no fun," complains young Benjamin McFadden. "I'm not programmed for fun," Babysitter answers. So, Benjamin opens up the forbidden panel on Babysitter's back and programs it for fun. Games! Books! Music! Cookies! Fun is had, but when Benjamin gets tired, the robot does not. Much to Benjamin's horror, Babysitter has become an out-of-control fun machine, wreaking complete havoc on the household as the pages explode with flying basketballs, jogging dice, rolling cups of cocoa, and cavorting chess pieces. Desperate, he calls the Babysitter Help Line, and is told that he must use the Ultimate Password to get his dear old boring Babysitter back. What is the Ultimate Password? Luckily, Benjamin figures it out before his parents get home. Kids will like poring over the comical details in Timothy Bush's artful depictions of a futuristic Jetsons-style home, and will easily relate to familiar babysitter-related sentiments and scenarios. An interplanetary robot romp! (Ages 5 and older) --Karin Snelson
From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 3-When Benjamin's parents go out and leave him in the care of his robot Babysitter, the mischievous boy becomes bored with its rigid ways and reprograms it for "fun." Things get quickly out of hand, and Benjamin is in for more "fun" than he can handle. Bush attempts to dazzle his audience by fusing a futuristic vision with a story about the impertinence of the young. What he achieves is little more than a shallow, space-age adaptation of The Cat in the Hat in which lyrical phraseology is replaced by choppy sentences that don't flow well. The illustrations are lively, busy, and entertaining, but the one-dimensional characters and plot flatten the story's effect. As our hero stumbles onto the answer to the problem he has created, readers will find the all-too-easy ending contrived and unsatisfying.
Christie J. Flynn, University of Texas of the Permian Basin, Odessa
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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