By Kelly DiPucchio
An old robot in a shop window watches every other robot get bought, and waits.
Clink is an old robot in a robot shop. He can make toast and play music, which was impressive once. Now the shelf around him is full of newer robots who bake cookies and catch baseballs and do robot laundry, and every day somebody comes in and chooses one of them. Nobody chooses Clink. He gets dusty. He gets dented. He gets sadder. Then a boy comes into the shop, and Clink's rusty old toast-and-music trick finally lands in front of exactly the right person.
Most robot picture books are gadgets and noise. This one gives a robot an actual ache, and a robot-obsessed child who is already halfway to thinking machines have feelings will find that this book agrees with them. The oldest, clunkiest robot is the hero, which is a good message for a house full of newer-better-shinier. Matthew Myers paints Clink with real weight and real rust, so he reads as a solid old machine rather than a cartoon, and the ending is earned. Not the loudest book on this shelf. Probably the one that sticks.