Brand new boy

Review by Booklist Review

New kid George joins Dan's primary-school class one week before the Easter holiday. While he looks like everyone else, George doesn't act or speak like the other children. Even weirder, a woman follows him to every class, and George is taken away by men in an ominous black van at the end of the school day. It is later revealed that George is part of a government project to build a robot that can fit in seamlessly amongst humans. Robot or not, Dan and his friends adamantly believe that George deserves to be treated as any other kid--so they concoct a plan to set George free. Under the surface of this story about regular kids who encounter an unusual situation is a deeper discussion of what it means to be alive. Arguments about the sentience of artificial life, albeit crafted for young readers, play a major role in this fun but thought-provoking novel. Young sf fans, especially readers drawn to Peter Brown's The Wild Robot (2016), will enjoy this title.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

---

Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

A child questions life's routines and predictabilities in Almond's (Annie Lumsden, the Girl from the Sea) gently existential telling. When new kid George shows up at Darwin Avenue Primary Academy in the last week of term, no one knows quite what to make of him. The 11-year-old is small, pale, emotionally distant, and when he speaks, barely moving his mouth, he either delivers dry facts ("Mam is the colloquial name for mother") or solves complex math; moreover, an adult called Miss Crystal seems always on hand, observing his every move. Nevertheless, George is soon accepted by his classmates, including white narrator Daniel, who yearns for the freedom of the outdoors and hopes to "discover brand-new worlds" like explorers discussed in class, and his exuberant Black best friend Maxie. Even while questioning George's true nature, they encourage him to join in their everyday activities, including lunchtime football. And when they learn that George is a prototype robot destined for replacement, they launch a plan to free their new friend. A wide-ranging narrative voice, by turns humorous, hopeful, and triumphant, traces the friends' attempts to help George transcend his own seemingly limited nature, while exploring impulses of imagination and creative freedom alongside classroom rigidity. Black-and-white illustrations from Altés (New in Town) portray the racially inclusive cast's interactions. Ages 8--12. (May)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

---

Review by Horn Book Review

George, the new kid in Daniel's class, is "weird." Lacking in affect, stiff, and overly literal, he arrives with an aide who takes notes on his every action. When George's ear falls off, revealing a USB port, Daniel and his friends realize, as the reader has probably already guessed (with help from the jaunty cartoonlike illustrations), that he is a robot. By this time, however, the other kids have become fond of him, and when members of the evil corporation that "owns" George come to retrieve him (after what has been a kind of beta test), his classmates rally to save him. At this point the story morphs from a lighthearted romp to something dreamier, in which George spends a single idyllic day in Almond's (Skellig, rev. 5/99; The Color of the Sun, rev. 11/19) favorite territory, a wild place at the edge of a town. He gets grubby, roughhouses with the other kids, learns to tell a joke, and becomes alert to the natural world. The other children face big questions. For example, Daniel contemplates the mind-body problem: "Do you have to be a thing that can pee if you're going to be a thing that can think?" Inevitably, the denouement is bittersweet, leaving us with a simple and sturdy answer to one of the most relevant questions of our time. What defines us as humans? This story's answer is friendship. Sarah Ellis May/June 2022 p.136(c) Copyright 2022. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

---

Review by Kirkus Book Review

Children welcome and defend a classmate who is, quite literally, new. With fine misdirection, Almond drops in early references to bullying, childhood trauma, and space aliens--as well as robots, which turns out to be the most relevant hint about the stiff and mysterious lad introduced as George who arrives at Darwin Avenue Primary Academy just days before term's end. But George's arrogant and secretive keepers at the New Life Corporation have made a serious mistake in selecting the Academy as an "ordinary little school" in which to try out their experimental product. Despite their new classmate's wooden speech and behavior, the children quickly see him as one of them: Even after watching George disturbingly assembled and disassembled before their eyes, four classmates spirit him away for a day of messy, fun play in the local woods. Almond elevates ordinary moments and experiences into extraordinary ones, and so, along with prompting deep thoughts in his chosen narrator, Daniel, George ultimately comes to an epiphany of his own after gazing at his reflection in a pond. The author supplies a resolution of sorts but finishes in a way that leaves readers to make up endings of their own. Names in the narrative cue a racially and ethnically diverse cast, as do the clean, cheerful ink-and-wash scenes of animated students and teachers surrounding George's pale, staring, minimally responsive figure. Inspiring guidelines for treating newcomers; likely to leave readers thinking deep thoughts of their own. (Fiction. 9-12) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

---

1 At the start we think he's just another kid like us. Of course we do. What else would we think? He turns up on a Monday morning, last week of the Easter term, in the middle of assembly. Mrs. Hoolihan's leading it. We can see she's excited about something or other. She's wearing a green tweed suit and shiny black high heels, and her hair's all dyed and curled. She keeps looking at the door at the back of the hall, like she expects it to open. She says all the usual stuff about how terrible bullying is. "Don't you agree?" she asks us. Of course we do. "Yes, Mrs. Hoolihan! Yes, Mrs. Hoolihan!" What else would we say? I'm sitting with Maxie Carr, like always. We're doing that thing where we grunt everything like we're animals or as if we don't know what words are at all. "E I OO I A!" we grunt. Maxie drops his shoulders and lets his hands dangle like he's some kind of ape. "Yes, children," she goes on. "We have to be kind to each other, especially those who don't have our own good fortune, or those who have been through trouble. Aren't I right, children?" "Yes, Mrs. Hoolihan." "E I OO I A!" She looks at the door again. Nothing. She blinks and frowns and grins and taps her finger in the air and looks at Mr. McKenna, who starts banging away at the piano. Mrs. Imani is there as well, with the little orchestra she's put together. They saw their fiddles, squeak their recorders, smack their tambourines. Mrs. Hoolihan spreads her arms wide. "Now liberate your voices, children!" she calls. "Sing up! Sing up!" She tilts her head toward the ceiling. "Raise your voices to the heavens above!" And off we go with the song we sing every Monday morning: "All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful, The Lord God made them all." The little ones at the front sing high and sweet like always. Me and Maxie do that thing where we sing the words as we're breathing in, so we sound like ghosts or like we're about to croak: "O I I A U E U. U OR O AY EM OR." Some kids around us start to giggle. Our teacher, Mr. Sage, who's sitting at the end of our row, starts to glare. Mrs. Hoolihan wafts her arms, conducting us all. Then the door at the back suddenly swings open. She jumps in surprise, then spreads her arms in welcome as a woman and a boy step into the hall. Mrs. Hoolihan waves at us to keep singing and waves at the little orchestra to keep playing. She waves at the woman and the boy. She indicates the PE benches like she's telling them to sit down there. They do that. She wafts her hands at them like she's asking them to sing along too. They don't do that. The woman and the boy sit there with their mouths shut. They stare out at us all. They don't move. At last we get toward the final "Lord God made them all." By now, me and Maxie are grunting like two daft dying pigs. Mr. McKenna gives a couple more twirls and thumps on the piano keys. The fiddlers, recorder players and tambourine bangers come to a halt. Mrs. Hoolihan claps her hands and tells us that was oh so wonderful, children. "Yes!" she calls, beaming with delight. "The Lord God did indeed make them all!" She bends down and whispers something to the woman on the PE bench. The woman smiles sweetly, and they whisper together for a while. Then Mrs. Hoolihan shakes the hand of the boy, and she brings him to the front so we can all get a good look at him and he can get a good look at us. "This," she tells us, "is a new boy." She beams at us. This is what she's been waiting for. We all stare at the boy. He's very pale. He's very tidy. He's smaller than me. He's wearing navy blue trousers and a light blue shirt and polished shoes. His pale hair is brushed close to his scalp. "His name," says Mrs. Hoolihan, "is George. Say hello to George, children." "Hello, George," goes everybody. "E O OR," go me and Maxie. George says nothing. He doesn't look nervous. He doesn't smile. "Welcome, George," says Mrs. Hoolihan, "to Darwin Avenue Primary Academy." He stares at her, then stares at us. "We were expecting George last week," she says. She widens her eyes and beams at him. "But it seems you weren't ready, George, were you? But here you are now, a treat for us all in the last week of term." George says nothing. She bends down and peers at him. "He's rather splendid, isn't he, children?" "Yes, Miss," say some of us. "E I," go me and Maxie. "Excellent. Now then, children. George will only be with us for a short time, so make him feel welcome. Make sure he knows all the ropes and the ins and outs and the how's your fathers and the ups and downs. I know you will do that. Will you do that, children?" "Yes, Miss!" "E I!" Mrs. Hoolihan beams at us. "Excellent. Make sure that his time here is something he will always remember. He will join Mr. Sage's class." Me and Maxie nudge each other. That's our class. "Now then, our bright and beautiful children, and our wise and wonderful teachers, off to your classes you go." Excerpted from Brand New Boy by David Almond All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

---