Robot Zombie Frankenstein: The next book you should add to your collection

I was thrilled when Annette Simon allowed me to review a copy of her picture book Robot Zombie Frankenstein. I tend to also be a tad nervous about reviewing picture books, because what if I don't like  it??? I luckily did not have to confront that fear with this review, because Robot Zombie Frankenstein was a home run with My Little Reader.

Simon's book tells the story of two robots that get into a friendly game of one-upping each other with various disguises. Zombies, pirates, space-invaders... the fun-factor increases with each page. Who will win this robot-battle? I don't want to give any spoilers, but a peace-offering finally ends the feud, and a friendship is formed by book's end. You'll have to check out the book to see what brings about the peace!

I honestly wasn't quite ready to show my son this book yet when I did. I was waiting for a nice chunk of time to do a solid read through and some kind of planned activity. But he found it sitting in my room and instantly snatched it up and demanded I read it to him. OK, so I know it's cover has some obvious kid-appeal...

My Little Reader is such a Mr. Literacy Launchpad Jr., he saw the layout of colorful geometric shapes on the endpapers at the front of the book and started suggesting crafts and projects we could use these shapes as inspiration for: "Let's make these shapes with paper, Mom, and then glue them together into our own robots..." These endpapers were definitely one of his favorite parts of the book - he kept going back to them even after reading the story several times.

The bold, colorful robots, set against the clean white background was visually appealing to my son and I alike. It seemed to feel accessible to my son, something he got, and could then mock and expand upon in his own creative way. The predictable catchiness of the text had the same effect. I caught my son flipping through the book on his own and "reading" it aloud independently just by the visual cues in the illustrations and being able to recall the incredibly fun and simple text that had stuck with him so solidly after just a few readings.

Robots have such a mass-appeal with kids of a variety of ages. And this book is so creativity-inspiring for little ones. I have bunches of ideas of fun activities to do after reading this book with your kids or students. You'll see some of those ideas in an up-coming video post (I'm in the planning stages of launching a full Literacy Launchpad YouTube channel!).

In the meantime, check out some of the fun My Little Reader was having with this book this week. This was all initiated by him! Love that kid! Love this book!

Buy the book!

 

Visit Annette Simon online HERE!