A Bad Case of Robots

Barnes and The Brains #3

by Kenneth Oppel

Tina and Kevin Quark, self-proclaimed geniuses, first encountered in "A Bad Case of ghosts". At the school science fair, Tina unveils her latest project - a robot. With its mania for tidiness the Tinatron 100 makes Kevin and his friend Giles's life a misery.

Genres: Canada

96 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

I was born in 1967 in Port Alberni, a mill town on Vancouver Island, British Columbia but spent the bulk of my childhood in Victoria, B.C. and on the opposite coast, in Halifax, Nova Scotia...At around twelve I decided I wanted to be a writer (this came after deciding I wanted to be a scientist, and then an architect). I started out writing sci-fi epics (my Star Wars phase) then went on to swords and sorcery tales (my Dungeons and Dragons phase) and then, during the summer holiday when I was fourteen, started on a humorous story about a boy addicted to video games (written, of course, during my video game phase). It turned out to be quite a long story, really a short novel, and I rewrote it the next summer. We had a family friend who knew Roald Dahl - one of my favourite authors - and this friend offered to show Dahl my story. I was paralysed with excitement. I never heard back from Roald Dahl directly, but he read my story, and liked it enough to pass on to his own literary agent. I got a letter from them, saying they wanted to take me on, and try to sell my story. And they did.

Reviews

[melhara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty fun and fast-paced children's book about Tina Quark who invents a really smart robot who can do everything perfectly... until it can't.

I liked that it touched upon the message that we shouldn't be striving for perfection (no one can be perfect! Especially not at everything, and not all the time!)

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Part of a personal challenge to read all of my boyfriend's and his sister's childhood books before we donate and give them away.

[Tommy Verhaegen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tina Quark, feeling superior towards her brother and their friend, or in general to the rest of the world, builds the perfect robot. In the process she ditches her brother from the "Local geniuses" collectif. Out of fear of problems with her parents she dumps the Tinatron1000 on Giles, whose mother is a math professor with a big distrust for Tina - justified because of het previous encounters with Tina's experiments, and his easy-living father.
Giles gets used to help from the robot, so he gets perfect scores on tests in school, just like Tina. Who looks suspiciously smug about that. His mother risks to become a problem until she discovers that Tinatron1000 is a math genius and she can work together with her on math issues.
But, after an incident, Tinatron1000 gets damaged and is no longer perfects, she gets thrown out with the rest of the junk. After a desperate search the three re-united friends find her... just too late.
Another funny stories with a bit more depth than the previous two, but still mostly fun and a bit sarcastic.

[Steven R. McEvoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the first three books released in a new series by Kenneth Oppel. First published in 1994 by Scholastic, now reprinted by Harper Collins, the first three books were released in February 2010, with three more slated for release in May. Kenneth Oppel on his blog talks about this series being written to be a resource between picture books and full novels for younger readers. It seems like it will do a good job and fill that niche.

Tina and Kevin Quark are child geniuses, and this year for the science fair Tina has created a fully functioning, learning Robot, the Tinatron 1000. But her parents will not let her keep it in the house. They persuade Giles Barnes' parents to allow it to stay with them, in part because Mrs. Barnes is a university professor and she can have high-end mathematical conversations with the Robot. But while Mrs. Barnes is trying to solve a difficult math solution, the Robot shorts out and starts to make mistakes. Soon it is missing and Giles and the Quarks are on the hunt for a lost and broken Robot.

It is a great fun read, for children of all ages.

[Jaime · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this book with my students and they didn't enjoy it very much. Not a lot of action.

[Marie B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cute read for second graders reading at grade level with discussible things.

[Nikki in Niagara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tina Quark is at it again and this time she's gone too far. For her science fair project she creates an intelligent robot called the Tinatron and from there plans to build many more to replace people the world over. Her mum and dad can't stand the thing so she convinces the Barnes' to look after it for a few days while she works on her parents. Well, the robot's insistence on everything being perfect drives Giles and his dad crazy but his mum is found having tea with it in the living room one day discussing mathematical equations (she is a math professor) and they become best buddies working on the ultimate equation. But then Tinatron's circuits spark and start to overload and they have a rogue robot on their hands who runs away. Can they find her and fix her before something terrible happens? Another great entry in the series. The most noticeable aspect here is that Kevin Quark's character has evolved from the dopey but happy slave of his brainy sister to a more regular kid who is overshadowed and bossed around by his brainy slave, making him a more believable and likable character. Otherwise everyone else is true to form. Tina is hit with some situations where we find that under that smart alek exterior there really is a kind heart. I really enjoyed the inclusion of Giles' mother in the story. Plus this book adds some variety by being science themed rather than supernatural in nature ass the first two. I'm loving this little series that has great appeal for both boys and girls, but certainly is one to add to the list of early chapter books for boys.