by Sam Hepburn

James lives with his recently widowed mother and their new Homebot who is designed to do many tasks in the home. James’ mom is thrilled with the new addition to their home since both humans are sad about the recent loss of James’ dad. James does NOT like the homebot who tries to micromanage James. In addition, James’ school is about to become part of a trial bringing in Schoolbots to train with the human teachers. They quickly start to take over the school and begin to replace them. Like with the Homebot, some people like the Schoolbots and others do not. Unsurprisingly, teachers begin to be transferred away from the school and the robots take over their jobs. While the graphic novel is told in humorous, light images, the subject matter is much heavier under the comic disguise – much like the “friendly” looking robots. There are serious topics under the surface – Artificial intelligence and its place with human beings. How much do we turn over to machines without losing the human interaction we all need? Book two appears to have James homeschooled by Schoolbot and monitored at home with his family Homebot – because we know how well it went to have students taught at home with computers…I went into this book thinking it would be a light, funny story about a homework machine, and closed it feeling a bit disquiet. While the story shows both the positive and negative sides of technology helping in our homes and schools, the human cost rings loud and clear. I’m interested to see where the second book goes.  I think this is a positive addition to a middle school graphic novel collection as we forge forward with A.I. more and more in our lives. How we interact with and integrate technology is going to be a huge issue in the future.