cover image Robot Raiders

Robot Raiders

Ellen Leroe. HarperCollins Publishers, $11.95 (181pp) ISBN 978-0-06-023835-3

Leroe's computer whiz/hopeful poet laureate Bixby Wyler returns for another ripping technological farce, this time involving NASA, MIT, an anticomputer corps known as ""Men, Not Monsters'' and, of course, robot Max and humanoid Ally Tonerds. Ally is, in fact, going to Mars with NASA's own highly evolved robot, the Cybernaut Elite, and that makes her the target of the Men, Not Monster fanatics. Frani, Bixby's stellar girl-from-back-home, foils the diabolical plot, and the book closes just before commencement of the Mars mission. Bixby, Max and Frani tell the story, all of them witty and impatient to have their turns at getting the facts straight. That keeps the story crackling along, from one short circuit, happily, to the next. Ages 6-9. (July)