Robot’s First Snow

Sharff’s second-person rhymes give voice to a lonesome robot who escapes the factory floor for an afternoon of seasonal fun and friendship in this snow-day outing. With human workers nowhere in sight, Robot’s curiosity about the falling fluffy stuff leads first to tentative exploration (“You step into a bank of white./ UNKNOWN SURFACE!/ WARNING LIGHT!”) and then to snowy construction of a “whole big/ snowbot town.” The protagonist’s loneliness is palpable amid pale scenes of solitary play until the bot spies “humans pushing big snowball.” The spotting of people in need rallies fellow bots, and the eventual group meet-up yields the protagonist’s longed-for experience of warm camaraderie. Occasionally foregoing articles, text apes computer-ese for a suitably robotic effect (“Robot, Robot, help them build/ big snow-human on the hill”). Partnering with clean lines and industrial hues, Abbo’s digital renderings have a crisp mechanical precision. Human characters are shown with various skin tones. Ages 4–8. (Oct.)