The Wild Robot Protects

Summary: The Wild Robot discovers not just new animal friends, but also new roles for her life.

I still have not seen the new Wild Robot movie, but I am a fan of the book series. This is an early middle grade series, so I am not going to worry about spoilers here. People reading reviews are likely reading to understand what their kids are reading, not because they are reading themselves. (I read it myself, my 9 year old has already read the first book and my 11 year old was not interested.)

The first book, The Wild Robot, was a book about self-discovery, vocation, and meaning. The Robot is lost at sea, washed ashore on remote island without people and learns to communicate with animals while learning from them about how to survive. She adopts an orphaned goose and that care for her son both helps her to see her role as a protector and allows the animals to see her as safe. The meaning from caring for her son and others drives her to continue to learn and see the world with different eyes.

The second book, The Wild Robot Escapes, is thematically about home. At the end of the first book, Roz, the robot, leaves the island to be repaired. Roz is repaired but because her memories are not damaged, she continues to remember her life on the island and her son. She is sent to work on a farm with a human family. Roz see the value in helping the human family. She learns to communicate with the humans, farm animals and different wild animals that she finds as she escapes from her work on the farm. In process of escaping from the farm, she is again captured, but this time is interviewed by the creator of her type of robot. That creator understands the unique reality of Roz and works to help her get back to the island, but again has repaired and upgraded her body to make life on the island easier.

The third book opens with Roz back on the island, but the island is in danger from an unknown pollutant. Roz has previously been programmed to not be able to fight or harm anyone. But as she explores, trying to find the source of the pollutant that is harming her friends, she discovers that she can defend herself. There is a mix of themes. The role of nonviolent solutions that benefit all and the interconnectedness of all things are the two main themes. Because Roz can fight, does not mean that she thinks she should fight. Throughout the books it is known that some animals must eat other animals. Roz became an adoptive mother because of an accident where her son's parents were killed. Roz was the proximate cause of the accident, but did not intend harm. That distance is how animal death for food is also handled. Animal death for food is a necessity, but not celebrated as a positive good.

The interconnectedness of the environment is part of that animal death cycle. When one part of the animal world is harmed, it hurts other parts indirectly. When a water pollutant starts killing off fish that impacts animals who live on land. Birds fly away, some of those birds ate bugs, so there is an increase of bugs as a result of the water pollution.

Socially, Roz's son, Brightbill, has grown up and now leads the geese's migration. When he returns he also has found a new mate. Because Roz no longer is needed to care for her son, she is now free to care for others. And because she was upgraded in the last books, she can now get wet and swim, and so she starts to look for the source of the pollution.

It is not surprising for adults reading to see that the pollution is from human mining operations. The mining is for rare minerals that are necessary to build robots. Which is a nice touch of both reality and interconnectedness that is part of the book's theme. There are humans on the mining vessel and they are humanized and contextualized well. They are not evil, but are unaware of the harm they are causing. They also are not sure what to do with a robot who talks to animals and who tells them of the harm they are doing.

This is a middle grade book, so it is a happily ever after book. The pollution is cleaned up. The humans learn how to mine with less harm. The animals are able to return to their habitats after robots clean the environment. And Roz returns to the island to find a new role as grandmother.

I think there are areas for complaint about how environmental problems are handled. Robots are not simply going to be able to clean up pollution. And environments which were devastated and species who are extinct because of pollution are not going to be restored. But there is a hopefulness to the book that I do think is good even if it is too simple. Humans want to care for their families just like the animal parents want to care for their families. It is just a matter of gaining understanding. This is a reasonable theme for a middle grade book, but simple awareness is not enough.

I remember reading memoirs of James Cone and Howard Thurman back to back. And both had sections where they discussed their early assumptions that white people must not understand the harm that segregation and racial hierarchy causes. They both thought that what was needed was to explain the harm of racism, which would cause white Christians to repent and work to change systems. Both books grappled with the way they came to understand that knowledge is a necessary but not sufficient step toward change. Change requires that we do something with the knowledge that we have.

The Wild Robot Protects has a good ending, but it is one that is open for future books.

This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/wild-robot-protects/

My son and I have read the whole series so far, and this one kept him less engaged than the others. I think it’s because the characters were less memorable (Chitchat is his favorite), but it could be because this one was more meandering than the others. Roz seemed to lack direction and that may have also been true of the Author who admits that the book was a tough one to write due to certain literary aspects he wanted the book to contain.

All in all, I think this book, and series, is still great for kids. I would just rank this book the weakest of the seriesso far.