Matt Cosgrove (text and illus), My Dad is a Robot, Scholastic, August 2018, 24 pp., $17.99 (hbk) ISBN 9781742993256
Kids will love reading this book with their dads – and Dad will love reading it aloud too. It’s fun and funny, playfully poking fun at dads, while also celebrating the many ways modern dads are involved in their children’s lives. The boy in the story compares his dad to a robot, finding all sorts of laugh-out-loud similarities most families will relate to – my family loves the part about the robot “running on leftovers” coupled with a picture of Dad at the open fridge munching away on whatever he can find!
The story is easy-to-read, with a little bit of cheekiness in both the words and the pictures. Dads will be able to playfully poke their little ones in the ribs at some of the lengths the robot dad goes to for his little boy. The book may prompt some robot dancing too! And there’s plenty of Dad jokes to roll your eyes at.
The illustrations are big, bold, bright and fun, with loads of funny facial expressions. There’s robots on the endpapers, shiny silver foil on the cover and the robot buttons on the word “robot” on the cover look super cool.
This is a fun book, perfect for Father’s Day, Dad’s Birthday or whenever kids just want to read with their Dad.
Author/illustrator Matt Cosgrove is a dad based in Sydney. He also wrote Macca the Alpaca. The second book in this series, Alpacas with Maracas has been chosen for the 2019 National Simultaneous Reading Hour. A high honour!
Reviewed by Carissa Mason
