Here are 100 books that Science Comics fans have personally recommended if you like
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My kid side loves robots and the possibilities they bring! My author side enjoys exploring what makes a reader “care” for a character that’s human, animal, and machine alike. And my parent side is ever interested in childhood with technology – the bad AND the good. Childhood today is very different from the childhood I experienced, but that doesn’t mean my experience was better, more correct, or even healthier. It’s just different! Kids today will remember their childhoods just as fondly as I remember mine. I aim to celebrate kids today and not to demonize the reality of their tech-infused world. I believe this list does just that!
I love this rhyming bedtime picture book for all its kid-friendly robotic vocabulary and the beautiful art that is full of clever bits to discover over multiple reads. This book is one of my favorite picture books to gift at baby showers and young kids’ birthday parties. This book has it all – all the way to the sweet twist ending!
A playful robot bedtime story, illustrated by Caldecott Honoree John Rocco!
Quiet at last. Not a peep. Three little robots are... BEEP! BEEP!
When his three rambunctious robots give every possible excuse not to go to sleep, what's a little boy to do? With a fun refrain that will have readers of all ages chanting along, here's a book that kids will be begging to read every night before bed.
As a kid, being shy and often scared witless of monsters under the bed, books were my refuge. I especially loved fantasy and great story-telling, which, at first, just took my mind off of things. Then, sneakily, the stories began to teach me how to find courage when facing monsters, as well as to value hopefulness, invention, and the study of science and nature. The earth is in a pickle now. There are monsters under the bed. We need science to help us find the right tools. We need stories to fire our inventiveness and our courage. Here are some great books for that. They will suit young readers and beyond.
I am fascinated by stories of robots evolving into sentient beings. For a change, in this one, the robots do not rise up to destroy their masters. Instead, we are invited into a funny, tender, and exciting tale about a robot who finds herself castaway on a wilderness island and must learn what her purpose is and how to survive. As she and the animals who live there grow closer and closer together, she begins to find a home in the wilderness. A rich story that works on many levels at once. It is a tale about the interdependence of all things in nature, as well as about the perils and possibilities that technology is bringing to us. Best of all, it’s about kindness.
'An engaging tale that explores many important themes. We can only hope that Roz serves as the template for all future robots. Peter Brown's illustrations are as marvellous as ever!' Coralie Bickford-Smith, author of THE FOX AND THE STAR
When robot Roz opens her eyes for the first time, she discovers that she is alone on a remote, wild island. She has no idea how she got there or what her purpose is - but she knows she needs to survive. After battling a fierce storm and escaping a vicious bear attack, she realises that her only hope for survival…
I’ve never forgotten how thrilling it felt to read a book on my own for the first time. Mouse Soup, Frog and Toad, and Amelia Bedelia are still among my most-loved books to this day. I particularly adore early readers created by authors and illustrators who aren’t afraid to get silly (James Marshall forever!). Stories for beginning readers are my favorite kinds of stories to write, and I always aim to write books that make kids laugh. What better way for them to discover that reading can be fun?
Cece Bell is one of the funniest, most fearless writers in town, and I never know what she’s going to do next. This book features Bell’s trademark absurd humor and endearing characters.
Rabbit lives by her to-do list, and Robot tends to go off-script, asking for nuts and bolts on pizza or running out of batteries during a game called Go Fish. (Hey, who hasn’t?) But for me, Rabbit’s missing remote gets the biggest laugh as Bell works it into a visual joke that’s a hoot to be in on.
Candlewick Sparks are perfect for the newly independent reader: * Award-winning stories by top authors & illustrators * Short, engaging chapters * Vibrant illustrations * Welcoming design Rich vocabulary Candlewick Sparks are sure to ignite a lifelong love of reading.
My kid side loves robots and the possibilities they bring! My author side enjoys exploring what makes a reader “care” for a character that’s human, animal, and machine alike. And my parent side is ever interested in childhood with technology – the bad AND the good. Childhood today is very different from the childhood I experienced, but that doesn’t mean my experience was better, more correct, or even healthier. It’s just different! Kids today will remember their childhoods just as fondly as I remember mine. I aim to celebrate kids today and not to demonize the reality of their tech-infused world. I believe this list does just that!
I included this book to counterbalance all the machinery and tech in my list. And while I am super intrigued by robots being robots, it’s also okay to go against expectations like the character in this book does! This robot actually unplugs (against his parent’s will) to explore what’s lies beyond his digital world.
**Check out the Doug Unplugs animated series on Apple TV!**
It's easy being a robot, if you play by all the rules—but when Doug gets curious, he decides to unplug and forge his own path. And he discovers a whole world of what's possible.
Doug is a robot. His parents want him to be smart, so each morning they plug him in and start the information download. After a morning spent learning facts about the city, Doug suspects he could learn even more about the city by going outside and exploring it. And so Doug . . . unplugs. What…
I grew up reading everything I could get my hands on, but my main loves have always been fantasy and sci-fi. Not so much because of the strange worlds their doors open onto, but because of what they tell us about being human. Because humans are odd and strange and beautiful and full of magic, and it seems more important than ever that we remember that. And not just remember it, but celebrate it, especially as it relates to those of us that are a little different and out of the ordinary. So I hunt out books that remind me how special it is to simply be delightfully, weirdly human. I hope you enjoy them!
In a not-very-distant future, Ben finds a robot at the bottom of the garden. Not one of the usual, fancy AI robots, but a rusty, creaky, and distinctly quirky one. Ben decides to keep the robot, whose name is Tang, over the protests of his wife. But Tang isn’t well, and Ben finds himself more and more invested in both Tang’s well-being and in finding out where the robot came from. This leads to a strange and beautiful buddy-road-trip style tale, as Ben and Tang trek across half the world to find Tang’s maker and, hopefully, the repairs Tang needs. And they find much more besides, as does the reader – discoveries about friendship and love and life and humanity.
For fans of THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS, THE FIFTEEN LIVES OF HARRY AUGUST and ET.
'A MOST UNUSUAL AND DELIGHTFUL BOOK' Alexander McCall Smith
Funny, touching, charming, wise: a friendship novel that explores what it is to be human.
Some time in the future: Ben Chambers wakes up to find an old robot - rusty and dazed- sitting underneath the willow tree in his garden. It's not a new android model, the type people now use for domestic chores around the house, but an antique one, no longer of any use. Refusing to throw it on the skip…
One piece of advice I give my kids is to listen to people who are wrong. One of two things happen: you’ll have to define, refine, and explore your personal positions in order to articulate why they’re wrong; or you discover you’re wrong and you grow. I spent 25 years in a church that made no sense to me. That caused me to read and think about why I didn’t believe what they said was “absolute truth.” My writing is the result of a long soul-searching experience that has led me to a place I’m comfortable with and others are finding comfort in the wisdom of The Infinite Jeff.
One of my philosophy professors said science fiction writers were the new philosophers. I couldn’t agree more. Science fiction authors can create worlds to test hypotheses about social structures. Hogan creates a world seeded with humans with the goal of finding a planet they can move to before the impending self-inflicted destruction of Earth. Without the connection to Earth, the society that forms is a highly productive world without an exchangeable currency. The robots that brought the ship to the planet can build everything they need. After generations, Earthlings make their way to the planet, bringing the ideas and philosophies that destroyed Earth. The locals welcome them and are amused at the absurd ideas. This book does a wonderful job exploring concepts of wealth, social structure, and so much more.
As a child, I was inspired by the feats of the first astronauts and cosmonauts, culminating with the Apollo expeditions to the Moon. As I grew up, I found that I was more of a historian than an engineer or a physicist. So, I began writing the stories of some of the people who were involved in the 1960s space race. I have since written about topics ranging from the strategic missiles that kicked off the space race to the Hubble Space Telescope, and today, I am the editor of Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly.
While many people expect that the future of space exploration will look like Star Trek, the reality is that robots will be blazing the trail around the solar system and beyond for some time.
This is an important and well-argued book that explains the realities of distance and danger that dictate the use of robots rather than humans for space exploration. It also explores the reasons why human-led space exploration is so popular in spite of its great expense.
Given the near incomprehensible enormity of the universe, it appears almost inevitable that humankind will one day find a planet that appears to be much like the Earth. This discovery will no doubt reignite the lure of interplanetary travel. Will we be up to the task? And, given our limited resources, biological constraints, and the general hostility of space, what shape should we expect such expeditions to take? In Robots in Space, Roger Launius and Howard McCurdy tackle these seemingly fanciful questions with rigorous scholarship and disciplined imagination, jumping comfortably among the worlds of rocketry, engineering, public policy, and science…
I have loved science fiction ever since I was a kid and read all my Dad’s ancient issues of Analog Science Fiction and Factfrom the 1940s. The first book I can remember reading was The Green Hills of Earth anthology by Robert Heinlein. Fast forward to the 1990s, when, as a new professor of computer science, I began adding sci-fi short stories and movies as extra credit for my AI and robotics courses. Later as a Faculty Fellow for Innovation in High-Impact Learning Experiences at Texas A&M, I created the Robotics Through Science Fiction book series as a companion to my textbook, Introduction to AI Robotics.
The second in his entertaining detective series in a near future where 2% of the population is paralyzed and has to teleoperate robots in order to interact with the world (interestingly, it was written before the pandemic). The protagonist, Chris (we never are told their gender, making for a delightful guessing game), is an FBI agent investigating a murder and along the way faces the kind of casual discrimination that the disabled undoubtedly face every day. Chris maintains a wry sense of humor through it all, adding an Elmore Leonard or Donald E. Westlake vibe that makes me laugh out loud.
John Scalzi's Head On, is a chilling near-future SF with the thrills of a gritty cop procedural. Head On brings Scalzi's trademark snappy dialogue and technological speculation to the future world of sports.
To some left with nothing, winning becomes everything . . .
In a post-virus world, a daring sport is taking the US by storm. It's frenetic, violent and involves teams attacking one another with swords and hammers. The aim: to obtain your opponent's head and carry it through the goalposts. Impossible? Not if the players have Haden's Syndrome. Unable to move, Haden's sufferers use robot bodies, which…
As an author, one of my goals is to encourage kids to fall in love with reading–but I’m not an illustrator. I wish I practiced art more as a kid. If I had, maybe I’d be illustrating my own books. If only these five books existed forty years ago, perhaps I wouldn’t have given up on art. So, in addition to falling in love with reading, I’d love to inspire those same kids to keep exploring their artistic sides. I’ve seen how these books invigorate the artistic spirit of creatives and I hope they do the same for you.
It’s amazing what a little crayon can do, especially when it’s broken.
Inspired by Ohi’s viral broken crayon illustrations, Park invites two aliens into the planet of broken crayons where magic is made. It’s amazing what a little friendship and art can do together (hmm, similar theme to Dear Unicorn, now that I think of it). Bonus: check out Ohi’s social media for loads more creative found object artwork.
This wildly imaginative, crayon-inspired picture book shows that with a bit of teamwork and a universe of creativity, anything is possible!
Buzz! Zap! CRASH!
Gurple and Preen are in a big mess!
When they crash-land onto an unfamiliar planet with nothing but boxes of crayons, they must work together to get the mission back on course.
From Newbery Award–winning author Linda Sue Park and illustrator Debbie Ridpath Ohi comes a story about all the best things that can come out of a box of crayons.
My favorite books—to read and to write—have always been funny Christian romances. But all four of my kids prefer fantasy. They want me to read with them, and they’ve been asking me to read nothing but fantasy for years. Now I can say it’s my second favorite genre. In fact, I learned to like it so much I eventually started writing a children’s fantasy series of my own, in between all the mushy stuff. Beyond Wisherton is the first in that series.
Dragons are cool. The one on this cover is clearly mechanical, and that got my attention. Cove is a rather dark setting so I would only recommend this for older kids. Readers can tell from the beginning that the oppressive society is rooted in fear. What is behind that fear? The main characters, Trenton and Kallista, aren’t all that concerned with the bigger picture. They’re only trying to solve a puzzle left by Kallista’s father. We get to watch them become good friends in the process.
Trenton Colman is a creative thirteen-year-old boy with a knack for all things mechanical. But his talents are viewed with suspicion in Cove, a steam-powered city built inside a mountain. In Cove, creativity is a crime and “invention” is a curse word. Kallista Babbage is a repair technician and daughter of the notorious Leo Babbage, whose father died in an explosion—an event the leaders of Cove point to as an example of the danger of creativity.
Working together, Trenton and Kallista learn that Leo Babbage was developing a secret project before he perished. Following clues he left behind, they begin…
