This book is more for middle school children than younger ones due to the terms. This is a really good book because not only does it go into detail on what goes into making and operating a robot but also the human anatomy. It tells the different jobs that robots can do that we can not. I like that it stresses that robots only do what human program them to do and that humans have free will. It does delve into the role robots will have later down the road like they will look like humans more than metal. My favorite part was Robots and Us the Future because I can see it becoming a reality. The illustrations in this book were very detailed and informative and liked all the fun facts and experiments.

Cool illustrations and diagrams (and topic!), but this is so text heavy that I'm not sure kids will gravitate towards this.

Informative in such fun way. My son enjoying reading this one so much.

Thank you for the chance.

This is certainly a unique way to explore the inner workings of the human body. The main focus of the text is certainly more on human systems than on robots, though there are also sections that have no human analog. Mostly, robots are used as an object lesson to explain more complex systems. It's more than just bones, muscles, and nerves. It's how various system work together to create a functional whole. The terminology is accessible, eschewing strict biological terms except where necessary. Use this book in conjunction with lessons on the details of body systems to help children understand how their whole body works.

Thanks to NetGalley for access to this ARC! "Bots and Bods," is an informative and entertaining educational read. Easy to follow along and explore various facts about science, regarding the connected world of robots and humans. Perfect for any curious kid interested in STEM topics!

'Bots and Bods' us a fascinating illustrated reference that introduces anatomy and robots to kids. Different aspects of human anatomy and how the body works is presented in a straightforward way. Robot technology, history, and utility us explained as a parallel to the human anatomy chapters. This book would be wonderful for kids interested in robotics!

Thank you Andrews McMeel Publishing and NetGalley for providing this ARC.

This book is a non-fiction book for children that explains in a simple and comprehensible language the similarities and differences between human beings and robots. My four years old ask me often about robots but the explanations in my head were complicated and not easy to share in a way that's easy to understand. In that light, I really appreciated this book and had a great time reading it with my son.

I think though that this book, while very informative on the robot side, does not do justice to explaining the human phenomenon. At times it sounds as if eventually robots will be just like humans, will have skin, will generate their own broken parts, and make decisions. I understand that this is a heated topic these days but I would have liked to see some more light shed on subtle aspects of human beings and what makes us unique.

Well, this was quite an interesting little read, if rather niche. It's a book that sort of engages in comparative biology, highlighting what makes the human form so unique and interesting, and putting it alongside any relevant kind of robot equivalent. So we get a lesson on the structure of the human skin, and then get it compared with the exoskeleton of a robot. We see how our arm, leg, and ankle joints and more are formatted, and then how robot forms might get optimised in similar or very different ways. The book also, luckily, if a little social-engineeringly, shows us what might happen if we combine the two – as we have been doing since the first pacemaker, and suchlike equipment. So at any one time we might be glorying in the future of search and rescue drones, or spider-like droids for use on other planets, or learning about the human digestive system, or getting used to medical use of nanobots and prosthetics – we're on the cusp of going off into a right jumble of subjects many times, but things just about hang together. Even self-driving cars and other automations get featured, and while the book does have a kind of 'you will get used to this' hectoring, I can see that it will also inspire copious diverse interests in multiple STEM subjects. I still think this is a bit specific and narrow, even if it is on two very diverse paths, but I also think this well worth commending to educators out there; it's pitched very well at a nine-to-thirteen sort of audience.