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Celia's Robot
Ten-year-old Celia is messy and disorganized, so her father builds her a robot to turn her life around. High-tech Robot is part nanny, part housekeeper, and all friend, but Celia worries that Dad build Robot because he and Mom are too busy to take care of her. Then Robot goes missing, and Celia wonders if she's lost her father's love as well.
211 pages, Hardcover
First published November 15, 2009
23 people want to read
About the author
Margaret Chang
7 books2 followers“Long ago, when I was sitting in my high chair in California having breakfast, my mother used to think, ‘The boy Margaret’s going to marry is somewhere eating his cornflakes.’ Little did she know.
“I grew up as an only child in Whittier, a suburb of Los Angeles, surrounded by people like my parents—transplanted Middle Westerners. Just beyond Whittier’s city limits stretched a vast, intriguing, multicultural city. I was five when we went downtown to eat Chinese food at Tang’s. It tasted a lot better than my mother’s Indiana cooking, and I still remember the small dish of yellow mustard with a drop of bright red hot sauce in the middle.
“My parents took me to the beach whenever they could, beginning my lifelong love of the Pacific shore. Another family pleasure was reading. Every night before bedtime, my father read aloud to me. I met Dorothy Gale, Robin Hood, Mowgli, D’Artagnan, Jo March, and brave, determined children from the Grimm and Andersen fairy tales. Later, reading on my own, I discovered Jane Eyre, Elizabeth Bennet, and Anna Karenina. But I never stopped reading children’s books.
“After graduating from Scripps College with a degree in English and a minor in art, I went east to library school at Rutgers to become a children’s librarian. I worked as an elementary school librarian for the Lexington Public Schools in Massachusetts and as a children’s librarian for the New York Public Library. I met Raymond Chang, the boy who’d been eating his rice porridge in Shanghai while I was having breakfast in my high chair in California. We married at my home in Whittier and moved to Williamstown, Massachusetts, where Raymond taught chemistry at Williams College for many years. We have one daughter. With her, I returned to the West Coast for yearly visits with my parents and our Chinese family.
“A master’s degree from the Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at Simmons College enabled me to pursue two parallel careers: writing and teaching. While Raymond and I coauthored four children’s books set in China, I taught both graduate and undergraduate students of children’s literature at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams. The Institutes offered by Children’s Literature New England (CLNE) inspired my teaching for twenty years.
“After taking a long break from teaching to finish Celia’s Robot, I expect to continue writing stories and promoting children’s literature for many years to come.”
How Celia’s Robot Came to Be:
“I was thirteen when I discovered science fiction. Even though the characters were mostly active guys and helpless girls (because the books were written mostly by men), I loved science fiction for the same reasons I had loved fairy tales and fantasy as a child: I could leave my everyday life behind and travel to worlds of imagination and possibility. It wasn’t long before I read Isaac Asimov’s I Robot series, with its Laws of Robotics.
“When I was a school librarian at Joseph Estabrook Elementary School in Lexington, Massachusetts, I loved talking to boys and girls about all kinds of books, from my favorite childhood family stories such as the Little House books to fantasies such as The Chronicles of Narnia books and Lloyd Alexander’s The Chronicles of Prydain.
“My marriage to Raymond Chang, who grew up in Shanghai, China, during World War II and the civil war that followed, made me part of a large Chinese family. My mother-in-law welcomed me, though she didn’t speak a word of English, and taught me to cook some of Raymond’s favorite dishes. I read about the events and beliefs that shaped his family’s life and carried what I learned into the field of children’s books.
Raymond and I had already written a popular book on the Chinese language when I took a graduate course in writing for children that led to a novel and three picture books set in China, coauthored with Raymond. Because I was also te
“I grew up as an only child in Whittier, a suburb of Los Angeles, surrounded by people like my parents—transplanted Middle Westerners. Just beyond Whittier’s city limits stretched a vast, intriguing, multicultural city. I was five when we went downtown to eat Chinese food at Tang’s. It tasted a lot better than my mother’s Indiana cooking, and I still remember the small dish of yellow mustard with a drop of bright red hot sauce in the middle.
“My parents took me to the beach whenever they could, beginning my lifelong love of the Pacific shore. Another family pleasure was reading. Every night before bedtime, my father read aloud to me. I met Dorothy Gale, Robin Hood, Mowgli, D’Artagnan, Jo March, and brave, determined children from the Grimm and Andersen fairy tales. Later, reading on my own, I discovered Jane Eyre, Elizabeth Bennet, and Anna Karenina. But I never stopped reading children’s books.
“After graduating from Scripps College with a degree in English and a minor in art, I went east to library school at Rutgers to become a children’s librarian. I worked as an elementary school librarian for the Lexington Public Schools in Massachusetts and as a children’s librarian for the New York Public Library. I met Raymond Chang, the boy who’d been eating his rice porridge in Shanghai while I was having breakfast in my high chair in California. We married at my home in Whittier and moved to Williamstown, Massachusetts, where Raymond taught chemistry at Williams College for many years. We have one daughter. With her, I returned to the West Coast for yearly visits with my parents and our Chinese family.
“A master’s degree from the Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at Simmons College enabled me to pursue two parallel careers: writing and teaching. While Raymond and I coauthored four children’s books set in China, I taught both graduate and undergraduate students of children’s literature at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams. The Institutes offered by Children’s Literature New England (CLNE) inspired my teaching for twenty years.
“After taking a long break from teaching to finish Celia’s Robot, I expect to continue writing stories and promoting children’s literature for many years to come.”
How Celia’s Robot Came to Be:
“I was thirteen when I discovered science fiction. Even though the characters were mostly active guys and helpless girls (because the books were written mostly by men), I loved science fiction for the same reasons I had loved fairy tales and fantasy as a child: I could leave my everyday life behind and travel to worlds of imagination and possibility. It wasn’t long before I read Isaac Asimov’s I Robot series, with its Laws of Robotics.
“When I was a school librarian at Joseph Estabrook Elementary School in Lexington, Massachusetts, I loved talking to boys and girls about all kinds of books, from my favorite childhood family stories such as the Little House books to fantasies such as The Chronicles of Narnia books and Lloyd Alexander’s The Chronicles of Prydain.
“My marriage to Raymond Chang, who grew up in Shanghai, China, during World War II and the civil war that followed, made me part of a large Chinese family. My mother-in-law welcomed me, though she didn’t speak a word of English, and taught me to cook some of Raymond’s favorite dishes. I read about the events and beliefs that shaped his family’s life and carried what I learned into the field of children’s books.
Raymond and I had already written a popular book on the Chinese language when I took a graduate course in writing for children that led to a novel and three picture books set in China, coauthored with Raymond. Because I was also te
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 1, 2019
Cute.
April 7, 2011
10yr old Celia Chow is not very organized. After everything goes completely wrong one school morning, Celia's dad thinks of the perfect birthday gift, a robot. Robot keeps Celia on task. Celia's mom is White and her dad is Chinese. There are moments when Celia wonders what others see when they look at her family. Celia worries her parents fight too much.
I really enjoyed this book. Celia was a very well drawn character. I thought it was pretty cool that her hobby was picking locks. The author does an excellent job with the Chow family relationships.
I was also pleasantly surprised to discover, there's a bad guy. Another computer scientist, Mr. Fisher wants to steal Robot. When Robot goes missing Celia is determined to get, her new friend back. There were a few exciting and scary moments when Celia confronts the men who took Robot.
"I reached into Robot's body and picked out the wire connecting the locator to the big battery. Fisher had left all his tools scattered around. It was easy to find the right one to splice the wire again. It was all I could do for Robot. I longed to make it whole, but I knew it was more important to find Dad's laptop. My legs felt weak and trembly, so I steadied myself by holding the edge of the bench.
The swish of an opening door startled me. I spun around to see a tall bony man coming through the door at the back of the lab. His curly blond hair framed a face that looked as if it had been colored with white chalk, and his eyes were as blue and cold as a winter sky. He could have been handsome, but he wasn't. He looked horrible. I started to run but he was too quick."
I really enjoyed this book. Celia was a very well drawn character. I thought it was pretty cool that her hobby was picking locks. The author does an excellent job with the Chow family relationships.
I was also pleasantly surprised to discover, there's a bad guy. Another computer scientist, Mr. Fisher wants to steal Robot. When Robot goes missing Celia is determined to get, her new friend back. There were a few exciting and scary moments when Celia confronts the men who took Robot.
"I reached into Robot's body and picked out the wire connecting the locator to the big battery. Fisher had left all his tools scattered around. It was easy to find the right one to splice the wire again. It was all I could do for Robot. I longed to make it whole, but I knew it was more important to find Dad's laptop. My legs felt weak and trembly, so I steadied myself by holding the edge of the bench.
The swish of an opening door startled me. I spun around to see a tall bony man coming through the door at the back of the lab. His curly blond hair framed a face that looked as if it had been colored with white chalk, and his eyes were as blue and cold as a winter sky. He could have been handsome, but he wasn't. He looked horrible. I started to run but he was too quick."
November 17, 2010
What organizationally-challenged child wouldn't love a personal robot to do all the hard stuff, like remembering what homework was due when, picking out what to wear to school, and figuring out how to keep their room clean? Wouldn't it be great to have a robot to help you with your math problems and quiz you on your spelling homework?
When Celia's dad, who is an extremely busy and brilliant inventor, gives Celia a prototype personal robot for her birthday, she begins to learn how to manage her life. Problem is - her dad has built some proprietary and top-secret capabilities into the robot and when word gets out about that, bad guys target her house and she faces a dangerous situation.
I liked the fact that while the robot at first does all the hard stuff in getting Celia organized, as the story progresses she learns how to do it without the robot's help and eventually the robot is there more for company than anything else. There's a whole subplot of problems in Celia's parents' marriage that feels very real, and the logistics of two working parents, one of whom is travelling almost all the time will sound familiar to many children.
I quite liked this story, but I would have liked to have the roles of her parents reversed. Why couldn't the mother be the brilliant inventor and the father be the musician?
When Celia's dad, who is an extremely busy and brilliant inventor, gives Celia a prototype personal robot for her birthday, she begins to learn how to manage her life. Problem is - her dad has built some proprietary and top-secret capabilities into the robot and when word gets out about that, bad guys target her house and she faces a dangerous situation.
I liked the fact that while the robot at first does all the hard stuff in getting Celia organized, as the story progresses she learns how to do it without the robot's help and eventually the robot is there more for company than anything else. There's a whole subplot of problems in Celia's parents' marriage that feels very real, and the logistics of two working parents, one of whom is travelling almost all the time will sound familiar to many children.
I quite liked this story, but I would have liked to have the roles of her parents reversed. Why couldn't the mother be the brilliant inventor and the father be the musician?
July 4, 2009
Celia is a messy, scatterbrained 5th grader with a few other problems: her parents are really busy, they fight a lot, and to top it all off, the neighborhood bully teases her all the time about being half-Chinese! Her father also happens to be a brilliant engineer, and he builds her a top-of-the-line robot prototype to help her with her chores and homework, and to be her companion. But there are rivals who would just love to get their hands on that robot...
This is a packed book, but it doesn't feel forced. It's great to see a book about robotics that is contemporary and in-line with current technologies. The various abilities that Robot has could actually be on the horizon in the not-too-distant future. The family and friend dramas are dealt with sensitively, compassionately and realistically. Plus it's set in Massachusetts which is an added plus for my library.
I can't wait until this comes out in October so I can start pushing it at the library!
Recommended. Grades 4-7.
This is a packed book, but it doesn't feel forced. It's great to see a book about robotics that is contemporary and in-line with current technologies. The various abilities that Robot has could actually be on the horizon in the not-too-distant future. The family and friend dramas are dealt with sensitively, compassionately and realistically. Plus it's set in Massachusetts which is an added plus for my library.
I can't wait until this comes out in October so I can start pushing it at the library!
Recommended. Grades 4-7.
September 1, 2013
Celia's dad is Chinese and is a brilliant scientist. Her mom is Caucasian and is a brilliant musician. Celia, herself, has some mechanical aptitude. When her father gives her a prototype robot for her birthday it changes her life. The robot is a rather annoying, nagging sort of ever-present nanny, often providing more specific guidance that her career-absorbed parents. However, it does help Celia get organized. That doesn't mean her life is easy, however. She's dealing with a mean boy in the neighborhood, a vicious dog, parents who are arguing (will they get a divorce), and trying to honor both sides of her heritage. The book is very competently written and, while not extraordinary, has several things going for it--kids love robots, and it's nice to see some Chinese-American heritage in a book. There's not enough of it out there. This would be a worthy addition to library shelves.
March 25, 2011
When Celia's dad builds her a robot to help her get organized and develop better habits, Celia finds that her robot is a good friend and teaches it new tricks. Robot causes quite a stir in the community and turns Celia's life upside down! Fun realistic fiction, but could have been condensed into a shorter story.
February 5, 2011
I didn't finish this book. Same old, same old. Celia's birthday present helps Celia with stuff - yeah, yeah, yeah. We all knew Timothy was going to steal the robot. Didn't like the book. Unh uh - don't read it.
I wish you could give half stars because it only deserves a half star.
I wish you could give half stars because it only deserves a half star.
June 25, 2013
I really like this book. Cealia got a robot for her birthday.
January 19, 2015
740L
Enjoyable story.
Enjoyable story.
March 7, 2016
Kids may like this one, but I didn't find anything special in it.
January 16, 2016
MT Reader Selector 2010-2011
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews