Caramel reviews Glork Patrol and the Magic Robot by James Kochalka

Today Caramel reviews Glork Patrol and the Magic Robot by James Kochalka, the third book in his Glork Patrol series, published in 2023. As usual, Sprinkles is asking questions and taking notes.

The book bunnies received this book as a review copy.

Sprinkles: So Caramel, you found another book with a robot in it!

Caramel: Yes, I have.

S: Tell me a bit about it. What is this book about?

C: Gonk and Baby Quackaboodle find a box on their door steps, and it turns out to be a little robot. Then Gonk’s father says it is his robot, and names it Glorkbot.

S: Those are some weird names.

C: The creatures with those names are even weirder. Each of them has three eyes. And Baby Quackaboodle is a very long snake with two arms and some funny hairdo which kind of looks like those flowers called birds of paradise.

S: Yes, and Gonk seems to be a pink walking mouth with three eyes and two teeth basically.

C: Yes. And he does not speak with correct English always. He says things like “Him don’t care about little robots”. So he is probably really young. His dad looks more humanoid, but he also has three eyes and three teeth. And he has a backpack who talks, named Super Backpack.

S: Dora the Explorer also had a talking backpack. It can be useful to have a talking backpack, no?

C: Yes. I could use it to help tell me exactly where my pencil box is. And if it has eyes, then it could tell me what is going on behind me.

S: Makes sense to me! So in this book, tell me, what happens with this little robot and the other characters?

C: Gonk and Baby Quackaboodle take Glockbot for a walk and then Gonk realizes it will do whatever it is told to do. So they tell him to dance, so fast that its battery runs out. Well at first they are not sure what happened, because the bot just falls down, but then the Magic Robot tells them that its battery is out.

S: Wait. What is the Magic Robot?

C: It is this big giant robot head that also has magic. Though I am not sure why a robot, which is mechanical, would need to use magic. And inside it is another! It’s kind of weird.

S: Well, the whole story is quite wacky, I’d say.

C: Yep.

S: But you love wacky, don’t you?

C: Yep, that’s me.

S: It turns out that this is actually the third story in the Glork Patrol series. And before those two books, there was another series called the Glorkian Warrior series, and even a video game. They all seem to feature Gonk’s dad. Apparently he is the Glorkian Warrior.

C: I want to read all those books too!

S: Why?

C: Because I liked these weirdos. And they have robots and space travel and all kinds of funky things. At least that is what it looks like when we read their descriptions.

S: Okay Caramel, we might look into some of these other books. I agree that these look right up your alley.

C: Yes, exactly.

S: So if you were to describe Glork Patrol and the Magic Robot by James Kochalka in three words, what would you say?

C: Colorful, hilarious, wacky.

S: Those describe this book well Caramel. It is really very colorful, isn’t it?

C: Yes, there is a lot of yellow, green, blue, pink, a little bit of brown for the ground, but the writing is very large and easy to read, and there is a lot of motion and some explosions! Glorkbot really looks like it is dancing!

S: You’re right. It actually does.

C: So yes, I liked this book a lot, and I want to read more about these weirdos.

S: Understood Caramel, I’m glad you enjoyed it so much. So let us wrap this review up then. What do you want to tell our readers?

C: Stay tuned for more book bunny reviews!