ALA Booklist

Judge (The Lonely Beast, 2011) shifts his focus from Bigfootlike loners to happy-go-lucky robots. Mom (a robot) has entrusted her son, Tin (ditto), to watch his little sister (yep, a bot), Zinc. Immediately, Zinc is floated away by her balloon. Tin takes to his bike, and so begins a book-long chase that draws its wows from several surprising changes of scale. Judge's simple art fits so naturally upon clean white-background pages that it's startling to discover intricate spreads of a busy city, a packed parade, and a bustling zoo; readers will feel compelled to find Tin, Zinc, and a hundred other fun details. The in-between scenes can feel a bit arbitrary, but they do possess plenty of adventurous ups and downs: Tin peddling up a slide only to go flying away after Zinc; the siblings falling upon an elephant and a giraffe, which both head in different directions; and the final resolve of a friendly park ranger o, unfortunately, gives Zinc a new balloon. The text throughout is clear and exclamatory while still remaining ineffably robotic. Will kids like? Affirmative.

Horn Book (Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2015)

Robot Tin is minding his younger sister, Nickel, when her balloon carries her off, and he has a devil of a time catching her. There are no interesting wrenches thrown into the works (Tin ultimately retrieves Nickel, and that's that), and this fantasy could just have logically revolved around humans. Then again, the blocky, clomping robots are kiddie eye candy.

School Library Journal (Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2014)

PreS-Gr 1 When Tin's mother asks him to watch his little sister, he thinks it will be an easy jobuntil he realizes just how quickly Nickel can slip away from him, and it's his dog, Zinc, who realizes that she's high up in a tree. Their pursuit of the canine, all the way to the city, feels a bit whimsical, never dangerous, making for an enjoyable and well-paced story. Judge's clean, bright illustrations feature a blue robot and a smaller green one with a yellow bow on her head and give plenty of extra details to talk about during a reading, making this an excellent choice for one-on-one sharing and group read-alouds. This picture book offers a fun story about how watching a younger sibling, whether human or otherwise, can be both a challenge and an adventure, a concept with which many young readers will be familiar. Most collections will find this title a worthy addition. Amy Koester, St. Charles City-County Library District, Wentzville, MO