Frank Cottrell Boyce

Prez and his granddad, residents of Dumfries, are inseparable—Granddad tells tales of sailing the seven seas with criminals and kings, and Prez keeps Granddad from getting too mixed up. But one day, Granddad is taken away and Prez is sent to live with a foster family, the Blythes, on their farm in the country. Then the Blythes receive another guest. Prez sees him as a wee man in a space helmet, flying goggles, and kilt, and the rest of the family see him as a dog. Either way, Sputnik — show more as he styles himself — is here to look out for Prez and to find out the Ten Things Worth Doing on Earth. Along the way, chaotic adventures ensue, particularly when Sputnik starts reading the manual!

I listened to the audiobook narrated by the always-excellent Peter Capaldi, aka the Twelfth Doctor, and he does a fantastic job. I especially loved his Granddad voice and the portrayal of Sputnik, who seems a bit Time Lord-y in his outlook toward humans and general capacity for Earth-based mayhem. Having a proper Scottish person reading a book set in Scotland adds so much more to the atmosphere, too, and teaches this non-Scot how to pronounce some things like dreich (dreek) and stramash (the stress is on MASH), as well as the place names.

The story is hilarious. I was listening to this mostly on planes and trains while in Scotland and kept smirking to myself at amusing turns of phrase or when the outcome of the latest adventure was made apparent. And at the same time it’s a thoughtful, sensitive portrayal of a child looking after an elderly relative with dementia. There were a few moments of strategic hiding behind sunglasses or magazines while I blinked back tears. It was partly the fact that Prez, at age 10, shouldn’t have had to have that burden by himself, but if you’ve had a relative with dementia, there’s a lot here that will hit home.

I rate this 4 stars for the story itself with a bonus star for Peter’s narration. I had a lot of fun with this and hope to re-read it sometime. show less

Liam has always felt a bit like he's stuck between two worlds. This is primarily because he's a twelve-year-old kid who looks like he's about thirty. Sometimes it's not so bad, like when his new principal mistakes him for a teacher on the first day of school or when he convinces a car dealer to let him take a Porsche out on a test drive. But mostly it's just frustrating, being a kid trapped in an adult world. And so he decides to flip things around. Liam cons his way onto the first spaceship show more to take civilians into space, a special flight for a group of kids and an adult chaperone, and he is going as the adult chaperone. It's not long before Liam, along with his friends, is stuck between two worlds again--only this time he's 239,000 miles from home.
Frank Cottrell Boyce brings us a funny and touching story of the many ways in which grown-upness is truly wasted on grown-ups. show less

This review first appeared on scifiandscary.com
‘Runaway Robot’ is a children’s comedy adventure novel that reads a bit like David Walliams reworking ‘The Iron Giant’. For the most part, it’s fine, but it’s messily conceived and lack the kind of narrative or imaginative spark that can make books like this great.
It tells the story of Alfie, a young boy with a prosthetic hand, who finds a giant humanoid robot at the Lost Property office at the airport. There follows a predictable show more enough series of thrills and pratfalls before an emotionally uplifting conclusion. It contains, then, all the elements that you’d expect in a modern kid’s book, and it is, at times, very funny. Unfortunately, good gags aren’t enough to carry it.
Now obviously, I’m far from the target audience for the book. In fact, I’m over 30 years away from being the target audience, but I’ve read enough children’s books with my son to know that plot and characterisation are just as important in children’s literature as they are in books for adults. ‘Runaway Robot’ is fun enough, but nothing in it made me care about what was happening.
The plot (such as it is) left me absolutely cold. It’s full of wild coincidences and a confusing mess of ideas that makes it hard to decide what it’s really about. There’s also an absence of the kind of joyous inventiveness that marks out the best children’s literature, and the fantastic events of the story end up feeling silly rather than wondrous.
All of that might not have killed the book, if the people in it had been more sympathetic. Sadly, even by the standards of current children’s lit-supremo Walliams (who I think is really over-rated), the characters are slight. Cottrell-Boyce doesn’t fall into the same trap of using lazy stereotypes that Walliams does, but his characters don’t live at all. They’re one dimensional and pretty dull.
Ultimately, then, I kept turning the pages just so I could get it finished, rather than because I actually cared about what was happening. It’s target audience might find more to enjoy here, but I’m afraid that aside from a few chuckles I didn’t like it much at all. show less

Dylan Hughes is the only boy living in Manod, an uneventful Welsh town of drizzling grayness that Dylan thinks is full of Hidden Beauty. His best buddies are two agoraphobic chickens named Michelangelo and Donatello after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. His family runs the Snowdonia Oasis Auto Marvel garage. When the business falters, his father takes off, and Dylan, Mam, his older sister, Marie, and his aspiring criminal genius younger sister, Minnie, try to make Oasis more profitable so show more that Dad will return. Flooding in London causes the National Gallery to evacuate its paintings to the safety of Manod's old quarry mine. (An actual evacuation to the Manod slate quarry occurred during World War II.) Lester, the art expert in charge, takes a shine to Dylan as an art connoisseur on hearing the chickens' names. When he agrees to put one masterpiece at a time on view, the villagers' lives are changed. Minnie concocts a hilarious scheme to nick Van Gogh's Sunflowers, replacing it with a paint-by-number affair. All gets sorted out and Dad comes home. show less