Robot Trouble

Bruce Coville's Robot Trouble is a spy story for 9 year olds about six very clever kids on an island where somebody they know is secretly working for the enemy.

What happens

The A.I. Gang live on Anza-bora Island in the South Pacific. Their parents are scientists on Project Alpha, trying to build a computer that knows it's thinking. So the kids are building one of their own, a detective program called Sherlock, in an abandoned house they use as their headquarters.

The trouble is Black Glove. The spy is a well-known face on the island, and nobody but the gang believes there's a spy at all. Now Black Glove wants them out of the way, and a second agent is flying in disguised as a security guard.

Then there are Sergeant Brody's new security robots. Ray and Trip go "scrounging" for spare parts in an old warehouse and get chased through the dark by one with fangs and flashing red eyes. It's a genuinely scary scene, until Ray tips out a box of ball bearings and Brody spends the next page falling over.

That mix is what this book does well. The gang's headquarters is full of daft inventions. There's a bronze head that says "Nobody loves me" and a robot dog that asks Wendy to marry him (she throws him across the room). Wendy eats enormous burgers of doubtful contents, and the twins know so much they're called Volume One and Volume Two.

Meanwhile a scientist has built a robot called Euterpe that turns the movement of the planets into music. The kids think it's beautiful. The spies think it's worth stealing. Who wouldn't want to hear what the solar system sounds like?

The gang have already had one adventure before this (they stopped a plot to blow up the island), and the opening chapters catch you up. Each of them has at least one parent who might be the spy, which gives the fun a slightly uneasy feeling underneath.

A small heads-up for UK parents. One description of Ray scrabbling for his glasses uses the word "spastic", which reads very differently here. And Black Glove is ready to hurt the kids if they get in the way.

What to read next

If your reader likes gadgets, codes and grown-ups who won't listen, they'll be very at home here. For more Bruce Coville, and more kids who spot the danger before any adult does, try My Teacher is an Alien, where Susan's class gets a substitute teacher who isn't what he seems.