IMO 4/5. Easy to read, soothing story, unique spin on reality and fantasy.

A couple years ago, a writing coach who was reviewing my work, suggested I read The Wild Robot for inspiration. I forgot.

A couple weeks ago, I was watching a webinar about the children’s book publishing market and The Wild Robot was given high accolades. I made a note to read it. The note still sits in a notebook somewhere.

Then my husband said he wanted to watch The Wild Robot movie.

Ok ok ok. The universe was telling me to read Peter Brown’s book phenomena about a wild robot. So I went and bought myself a copy.

I am in the process of writing my first children’s fantasy novel. It’s not a genre I spend a lot of time with, although I LOVE the Narnia series. Harry Potter was genius. A Wrinkle in Time is worth rereading. And I’m currently reading La Telarana de Carlota in an effort to help me learn Spanish.

I read The Wild Robot to enjoy, yes, but also to peruse with my writer’s hat on. What can I learn from this writing genius that will help me on my own path? So much.

• Brown sometimes starts chapters with ‘And’ and ‘But’. Glad to know this is ok!
• Very short chapters. In my manuscript some of the chapters are very short. No need for me to be worried about this! Yesssss.
• Not all chapter endings are cliff hangers. THANK GOODNESS.
• The first three words in every paragraph were italicized. Such a unique fingerprint to the appearance of his novel.
• Sound were displayed interestingly. -thunk!-
• Brown tackled subjects like death and poop beautifully. He didn’t shy away from them or avoid them. He presented these very real parts of life in an easy-to-comprehend way, often humorously.
• Drey is a squirrel nest. Whaaat? We have an abundance of squirrels around my home. How have I never heard that word?? Potentially new vocab was introduced amongst a sea of early-learning words. Great balance of easy and challenging words throughout the story.
• Brown’s ability to spark emotion when dealing with an emotionless main character was impressive (see page 170 my gosh. Beautiful)
• There are some great one-liners, “If you stand in the forest long enough, eventually something will drop on you.” (pg 19). That should be in a fortune cookie.
• Brown is both an author and illustrator (more on that to come) and I appreciated the illustrations throughout the story.
• One of my favorite things about this fantasy story is that it revolves around a fantastical main character, but is full of the extravagancy of real life. A robot that raises a gosling- fantasy. The beautiful wilderness, predators and prey, instincts, trees, ocean, cargo ships- reality portrayed in a bigger-than-life way. Kudos to Peter Brown for observing and recording reality in such an amazing way.

Peter Brown put such a personal touch to the book by his ‘Author’s Note’ in the beginning and ‘Note about the Story’, Acknowledgements section, and ‘Behind the Scenes’ at the end. He walked us through how he came up with the story, showed us some of his original sketches and also shared why my particular edition looked different than the original.

You see… my edition came out after the movie, so the pictures and cover art reflected the big-screen, not Brown’s original sketches. He mentions that he supported the changes. I’m sure he did. That’s probably the price you pay when your children’s novel is made into a blockbuster hit. I gotta imagine it was still a little painful though.

A note about the movie: I didn’t love it. If I hadn’t read the book, I would’ve liked it better. Some of the beautiful subtleties Brown captured so remarkably in the book were changed in the movie. Isn’t that always the case though?

As a writer, I pondered how that would feel. Would I wonder if I should’ve written the scenes as the movie script reflected, like I didn’t do the best job I could have? Would I hate the movie because they changed my story? Would it keep me up at night? Would I go along with whatever changes producers wanted just to see my story in theaters or would I fight for certain themes or characters to remain unchanged? I can only hope one day I’ll be facing these questions for my own story.

For now… Thank you Peter Brown for the entertainment and the writing lesson.