The Wild Robot Protects: 01/21/25

The Wild Robot Protects by Peter Brown (2023) is the third Wild Robot book. Roz is eagerly awaiting the return of her son, Brightbill, when an injured seal tells her about an approaching danger, a poisonous tide coming from the north.

By book three Roz's relationship to the island is well established. She is a mother to Brightbill and by extension a mother / leader figure to the other creatures of the island. She wants to protect her island from this tide and she tries by staying on the island.

She sees her vulnerabilities both by what she knows of the animals on the island and what she remembers from her first body. What Roz now needs to learn is that she has grown since her first unboxing. She has a newer, better built, all weather body. She is the only one on the island with the strength and endurance to find the source of the tide and possibly stop it.

As the author explains in his afterword, The Wild Robot Protects was his chance to explore global warming and man's impact on the environment. He set out to write a bigger story than he had with either of the previous books. This book is about taking what you've learned through raising children to help the larger community or world.

The Wild Robot Protects's placement on the Road Narrative Spectrum reflects the author's change in focus. In the previous two, Roz had been an orphan: first separated from other robots, and then separated from her found family. Now she is traveling as a scarecrow (protector) with the grim realization that she might be part of the problem, a minotaur (monster) if you will. Her destination is uhoria: the unknown future of whether or not she'll be able to find a solution. Her route is the Blue Highway represented by a road she finds due to flooding but also by the blue sea itself and the path of poison she follows northward.

Five stars

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