I haven’t seen The Wild Robot movie yet, but as soon as I saw the trailers a couple years ago, I knew I wanted to see it. And I always like to read the book first, so I picked up the first two and finally got around to reading the first one. It’s about Roz the robot, who ends up on an uninhabited island after a cargo ship sinks. She is accidentally activated by otters (never thought that would be a sentence I’d write) and learns to live on the island.
Unfortunately, for me it was just ok. I loved the way Roz had to learn to coexist with the animals, who at first view her as a monster. Then she learns their language, speaks to them, helps them, and they come to appreciate her. When Roz accidentally destroys a goose nest, she takes the remaining egg and then raises the hatchling, Brightbill. And that’s when I got bored. I didn’t go into the book expecting to read a tale of motherhood, and it really didn’t do much for me. My interest picked up again later when the parenting was largely done, then there was some tension and ultimately sadness towards the end.
I loved the simple artwork the author includes.
I also appreciated that he didn’t overly sanitize wildlife. While he does not go into graphic detail, animals die. Sometimes it’s accidental, sometimes weather-related, and sometimes from predators. This is a middle grade book and seems to read as being on the younger end of middle grade (with the caveat that I haven’t read many middle grade books), and I could see it upsetting some readers, children and adults alike, especially if they’re particularly sensitive to death or animal welfare, but I do think it was done sensitively.
Partly because my interest had picked back up towards the end, but mostly because it ends on a cliffhanger, I do plan to eventually read book 2. Eventually. 3.25 stars, rounded down.
