Title: Doll-E 1.0
Author: Shanda McCloskey
Type: Fiction
Genre: Children’s Book, Picture Book, Science Fiction
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (Hachette Book Group)
Date published: May 1, 2018

A physical copy of this book was kindly provided by the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.

A STEM-friendly tale of a girl and the doll she upgrades to be her new friend, for fans of The Most Magnificent Thing and Rosie Revere, Engineer.

Charlotte’s world is fully charged! With her dog at her side, she’s always tinkering, coding, clicking, and downloading. She’s got a knack for anything technological–especially gadgets that her parents don’t know how to fix! Then, she receives a new toy that is quite a puzzle: a doll! What’s she supposed to do with that? Once she discovers the doll’s hidden battery pack, things start to get interesting…while her faithful canine sidekick wonders if he’ll be overshadowed by the new and improved Doll-E 1.0! With a little ingenuity and an open mind, everyone can be friends in this endearing, modern tribute to the creative spirit of play.

– My Review –

This book was very cute! The art was very sketch-like and simple, but pleasant to look at. The colours were also nice to look at, with enough white spaces to not make the pages look too busy, or too full of elements. I also really like the two main messages that I took away from this book (and that I would hope children would take away when reading this book as well)! The first message that stood out to me was the positive impression that the book gives regarding girls working with technology (the main character is quite talented at working with tech, and her parents are also quite supportive of their daughter working with tech)! The other message that I took away from Doll-E 1.0 is that it’s alright for children to play with technology some of the time, but that spending some time playing outside is also important and a good thing.

This is the first time that I’ve seen a book combine the ideas of children playing with technology and playing outdoors, and I have to say that this might be the most realistic suggestion / recommendation for parents and their children considering the world we live in today. Where I live, at least, children have days on which they are asked to bring their tablets to school for “Technology Day.” I don’t even own a tablet, so I feel very strange about my future children having their own tablets, but there have been cases where children were made fun of (and even bullied) for not having a table to take to school. It’s, therefore, quite important that a balance is found, and the author of Doll-E 1.0 may have come to the same conclusion!

– About the Creator –

From Shanda McCloskey‘s website: Shanda (rhymes with panda) comes from a whole family of different kinds of artists! She studied art in Atlanta and New York City. But before writing and illustrating kids books, she taught art to high-schoolers. Shanda is the mama of two young girls and the wife of a cute web developer. DOLL-E 1.0 is her very first book about robots or anything for that matter! DOLL-E 1.0 publishes May 1, 2018 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

– Purchase Links –

THANK YOU FOR READING MY BOOK REVIEW! HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK? WHAT DID YOU THINK? AND IF YOU HAVEN’T READ IT YET, DO YOU WANT TO, OR NOT? HOW COME? LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!