Robots by Charles Hope

Wild Dog Books, 2020. ISBN: 9781742034799.
(Age: 6+) Highly recommended. This non fiction book about robots, subtitled The Future is Now, will rarely be left on the shelves as it informs, interests, entertains, delights and encourages readers to think beyond. Divided into fifteen succinct chapters, with lots of visual material to pore over, each page contains a brief outline encouraging readers to think about the terms expressed. The bites of information are put together in a way that younger readers can absorb, terms are expressed in such a way that their context tells the reader what they mean and each page develops a new idea. A definition of a robot is a good place to start, and from there the author tells us of the earliest robots: the story of Pygmalion, the golem, Frankenstein's monster and the more recent forays into the world of science fiction. Most readers will have heard of R2D2, Wall-E, HAL and K-9, and the book goes on to look at automatons and then discuss the difference between robots, cyborgs and androids. With these differences firmly in place, the book continues to discuss the use made of such robots and what the future may hold. A page is devoted to AI, and then Nanobots and Cobots, terms new to me.
Readers will be enthralled at the range of information given with wonderfully apt illustrations to behold and longer over. A terrific index is presented at the end for those curious minds to further explore the book.
This is one of a series of books being published by Wild Dog, the first two were Artificial Intelligence, and 3D Printing, while three more are in the pipeline: Chips, Phones and Virtual Reality.
Themes: STEM, Robots, AI, Science fiction, Future, Science.
Fran Knight