Batteries Not Included - Seth McEvoy

A children's book, bought for me by my sister, as it was my favourite read when growing up. To give you an idea how long ago it was when I first read it, I remember feeling very proud because the recommended age range for the book was '8 years upwards', so I was reading something very advanced. The 13-year-old protagonists were really big kids.

The plot is that Dr. Carson has created an android, and wants to test how practical it is by pretending it's his son. So, he sends it off to school, gets his daughter Becky to keep an eye on it, and hijinks ensue, across a series of eventually six books.

It's terribly strange, going back. After reading plenty of 'grown-up novels', it's surprising how many events you can fit into 150 (low-density) pages of simple prose. It's not fantastically clever stuff, but neither is it horrific to re-read.

A quick google reveals Seth McEvoy is now working as a technical writer at Microsoft. Somehow appropriate.

Posted 2011-08-24.