Brand New Boy

March 21, 2022
A child questions life’s routines and predictabilities in Almond’s (Annie Lumsden, the Girl from the Sea) gently existential telling. When new kid George shows up at Darwin Avenue Primary Academy in the last week of term, no one knows quite what to make of him. The 11-year-old is small, pale, emotionally distant, and when he speaks, barely moving his mouth, he either delivers dry facts (“Mam is the colloquial name for mother”) or solves complex math; moreover, an adult called Miss Crystal seems always on hand, observing his every move. Nevertheless, George is soon accepted by his classmates, including white narrator Daniel, who yearns for the freedom of the outdoors and hopes to “discover brand-new worlds” like explorers discussed in class, and his exuberant Black best friend Maxie. Even while questioning George’s true nature, they encourage him to join in their everyday activities, including lunchtime football. And when they learn that George is a prototype robot destined for replacement, they launch a plan to free their new friend. A wide-ranging narrative voice, by turns humorous, hopeful, and triumphant, traces the friends’ attempts to help George transcend his own seemingly limited nature, while exploring impulses of imagination and creative freedom alongside classroom rigidity. Black-and-white illustrations from Altés (New in Town) portray the racially inclusive cast’s interactions. Ages 8–12.

May 15, 2022
Grades 4-7 New kid George joins Dan's primary-school class one week before the Easter holiday. While he looks like everyone else, George doesn't act or speak like the other children. Even weirder, a woman follows him to every class, and George is taken away by men in an ominous black van at the end of the school day. It is later revealed that George is part of a government project to build a robot that can fit in seamlessly amongst humans. Robot or not, Dan and his friends adamantly believe that George deserves to be treated as any other kid--so they concoct a plan to set George free. Under the surface of this story about regular kids who encounter an unusual situation is a deeper discussion of what it means to be alive. Arguments about the sentience of artificial life, albeit crafted for young readers, play a major role in this fun but thought-provoking novel. Young sf fans, especially readers drawn to Peter Brown's The Wild Robot (2016), will enjoy this title.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

May 1, 2022
George, the new kid in Daniel's class, is "weird." Lacking in affect, stiff, and overly literal, he arrives with an aide who takes notes on his every action. When George's ear falls off, revealing a USB port, Daniel and his friends realize, as the reader has probably already guessed (with help from the jaunty cartoonlike illustrations), that he is a robot. By this time, however, the other kids have become fond of him, and when members of the evil corporation that "owns" George come to retrieve him (after what has been a kind of beta test), his classmates rally to save him. At this point the story morphs from a lighthearted romp to something dreamier, in which George spends a single idyllic day in Almond's (Skellig, rev. 5/99; The Color of the Sun, rev. 11/19) favorite territory, a wild place at the edge of a town. He gets grubby, roughhouses with the other kids, learns to tell a joke, and becomes alert to the natural world. The other children face big questions. For example, Daniel contemplates the mind-body problem: "Do you have to be a thing that can pee if you're going to be a thing that can think?" Inevitably, the denouement is bittersweet, leaving us with a simple and sturdy answer to one of the most relevant questions of our time. What defines us as humans? This story's answer is friendship. Sarah Ellis

(Copyright 2022 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from March 15, 2022
Children welcome and defend a classmate who is, quite literally, new. With fine misdirection, Almond drops in early references to bullying, childhood trauma, and space aliens--as well as robots, which turns out to be the most relevant hint about the stiff and mysterious lad introduced as George who arrives at Darwin Avenue Primary Academy just days before term's end. But George's arrogant and secretive keepers at the New Life Corporation have made a serious mistake in selecting the Academy as an "ordinary little school" in which to try out their experimental product. Despite their new classmate's wooden speech and behavior, the children quickly see him as one of them: Even after watching George disturbingly assembled and disassembled before their eyes, four classmates spirit him away for a day of messy, fun play in the local woods. Almond elevates ordinary moments and experiences into extraordinary ones, and so, along with prompting deep thoughts in his chosen narrator, Daniel, George ultimately comes to an epiphany of his own after gazing at his reflection in a pond. The author supplies a resolution of sorts but finishes in a way that leaves readers to make up endings of their own. Names in the narrative cue a racially and ethnically diverse cast, as do the clean, cheerful ink-and-wash scenes of animated students and teachers surrounding George's pale, staring, minimally responsive figure. Inspiring guidelines for treating newcomers; likely to leave readers thinking deep thoughts of their own. (Fiction. 9-12)

COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

January 1, 2022
George, the new kid in Daniel's class, is "weird." Lacking in affect, stiff, and overly literal, he arrives with an aide who takes notes on his every action. When George's ear falls off, revealing a USB port, Daniel and his friends realize, as the reader has probably already guessed (with help from the jaunty cartoonlike illustrations), that he is a robot. By this time, however, the other kids have become fond of him, and when members of the evil corporation that "owns" George come to retrieve him (after what has been a kind of beta test), his classmates rally to save him. At this point the story morphs from a lighthearted romp to something dreamier, in which George spends a single idyllic day in Almond's (Skellig, rev. 5/99; The Color of the Sun, rev. 11/19) favorite territory, a wild place at the edge of a town. He gets grubby, roughhouses with the other kids, learns to tell a joke, and becomes alert to the natural world. The other children face big questions. For example, Daniel contemplates the mind-body problem: "Do you have to be a thing that can pee if you're going to be a thing that can think?" Inevitably, the denouement is bittersweet, leaving us with a simple and sturdy answer to one of the most relevant questions of our time. What defines us as humans? This story's answer is friendship.

(Copyright 2022 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)