Fifth grader Ellicott Skullworth has always felt out of place at public school and now he’s tested into the Archimedes Program at Latimer University. While in Latimer City, he’ll be living with his world famous and insane(ly) brilliant cousin, Banneker Bones, the eleven-year-old inventor of robots. The only problem: Banneker doesn’t want to share his room. And he’s got an army of robots to make … make Ellicott miserable until he goes home.
When the boys are ambushed by robot bees as big as cars, Ellicott’s only friend is carried off and held for ransom. To rescue him, Ellicott has no choice but to partner with his maniacal cousin. Ellicott doesn’t know what’s worse: facing a hive of giant robot bees or spending more time with Banneker Bones.
BANNEKER BONES AND THE GIANT ROBOT BEES is a humorous, science fiction adventure for readers of all ages written in the spirit of a comic book.
“Let me say at once that I think this is a most original and amusing piece of work. A reader is arrested at the outset by a paradoxical witticism and he goes on being arrested as the story gets into its stride. Ellicott Skullworth and Banneker Bones appear as characters about whom the reader wants to learn more, and soon he begins to be in no doubt about this.”
–Richard Adams, author of WATERSHIP DOWN
Ellicott Skullworth turned back to Banneker Bones. “Well, anyway, thanks for letting me stay here.”
“Not my idea,” Banneker said. “You have my mother to thank for that. But she’s been wrong before. She adopted a stray puppy once and put it in my room to,” he made a face to show his disgust, “keep me company. The puppy survived two days.”
Banneker looked Ellicott up and down as though he were appraising something for purchase and deciding against it. “And now she’s adopted another stray, hasn’t she? We’ll just see how long you survive.”
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Read for 2021 SPSFC
Overall Thoughts
This was a very fun read, though perhaps not the best suited to the SPSFC contest. Going into the book, I wasn’t sure how much this one would fall on the MG vs. YA dividing line, but having read it, the story is very much MG, which I believe is a little outside the range of intent for the contest. But that said, I don’t think this will be a big issue. While I enjoyed the story, it doesn’t have a really strong holding power for me like Sanderson’s Alcatraz books did, and I’m guessing this will fall off my top ten list fairly soon, but will likely stay near the top in enjoyability! Though I did have one quibble with the formatting. This story followed the rule of any number under ten being written out, while ones over, like 23, or 52, are written as numbers. There are also a lot of numbers in this book, so it was a little annoying to see a paragraph with six and 25 and then another paragraph with 18 and three.
Plot
This is the first book of a several book series about the titular Banneker Bones, as well as his lesser-known cousin Ellicott, who is actually the POV of the book. There’s a lot to love here, with first the mystery of who Banneker is, and then what’s happening behind the scenes in a huge, robot manufacturing company. I guessed the twist at the end fairly quickly, but then, this is an MG story, so it’s not supposed to be too challenging. Some of the scenes felt a bit “now we’re showing off this cool feature! Now here’s another cool thing that’s exciting to young people!” but I guess that can be chalked up to the intended age being about one fourth of my own.
Setting
In the maybe-futuristic, maybe-contemporary Latimer city, many jobs are being made easier with the help of advanced robots, partially invented by the titular character. We get to see the city from the outside perspective of Ellicott, so there’s a nice sense of wonder here in how the “big city” works and what all the robots do. And of course there are giant robot bees, which are just fun. Don’t look too deep into how things actually work without falling apart, because therein lies the enjoyment.
Character
This was the part I was most intrigued with, especially since this is a mid-grade book. While Ellicott is a fairly likeable everyman, Banneker is not a pleasant person at all, and a bit hard to empathize with as a hero character. While it does set him up to grow a little as a character, and probably more through the other books, he’s basically a bully for the first part of the book, which made me think he was going to be a villain or an antihero, rather than basically the hero of the story. I’ll also quibble slightly that Ellicott got the grades to get transferred into a school for geniuses, but then ends up being the Watson to Banneker’s Holmes. I would have liked a little more initiative from him.
Score out of 10 (My personal score, not the final contest score)
Temporary score until more books in the contest are read: A fun read with some cool robots, though clearly intended for preteens, and doesn’t really have the holding power for an adult to enjoy as thoroughly. 4/10