Young readers will have no quibbles about the sketchy ethics of not notifying families that a robot teacher is working in their school. There's also the eyebrow-raiser of the principal canceling the school's appearance in the field hockey championship game but not letting the other school know (their team shows up as scheduled). But Korman has a way of taking an improbable plotline and making it fairly believable, with suspense and empathy. The main kid characters demonstrate agency and motivation to figure out what's up with Mr. Aidact, and then when he becomes a pariah in the community, rush to his defense and protection. With all the buzz about artifical intelligence these days, this is an imaginative exploration of the possibilities. ( )

This novel for middle school kids investigates the possibilities of artificial intelligence. While it is a humorous look at a "super teacher" who turns out to be an artificial intelligence being, the book tackles some serious topics of the uses of AI and how those who are different can or cannot fit into society. Themes of this book include inclusion and diversity, discrimination, fear of those who are different, and the triumph of kindness over fear.

I received this book from the publisher and from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The ideas expressed here are entirely my own.

First sentence: Consider the spitball. Not the baseball kind. That's something different. I mean the school kind.

Premise/plot: It's the start of a new school year. Mr. Aidact is a new teacher at Brightling Middle School. He has a "student teacher" named Mr. Perkins (who is a LOT older). As the weeks go by, students and staff come to rely on Mr. Aidact. The teachers love how willing he is to do anything and everything he's asked. Take on detention duties? extra lunchroom or recess duties? become a coach for a field hockey team? There's nothing he won't do to please. But as the weeks turn to months, well, things go from smooth to rough. Will he last his first year of teaching?

My thoughts: I don't know WHY the jacket flap insists on spoiling this one. One pro for spoiling this one ahead of time is that the premise might just be enough to pull readers in. It is a fun premise, no doubt, as to WHO Mr. Aidact *really* is. (Or what). But some readers don't like the plot spelled out for them right on the jacket flap. (I'm "some reader.") The reader will know more than the characters in the story start to almost finish.

I would like this one more if there weren't eight hundred narrators. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration. There's probably only a dozen. Still, I would rather alternate between three or four narratives [if I can't have just one narrator], than alternate between a dozen [give or take a few]. The narrators mostly blend together--mostly.

This one reads like a sitcom. In fact, it reads like a sitcom from the 80s. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a pilot made with this premise. ( )