Rover and Speck

When landing on a new planet, Rover's antenna is damaged by a meteoroid, leaving it no way of alerting its rocket ship when it's ready to leave. Exploring in the meantime, it discovers and reboots another rover named S.P.E.C.K., who tags along on the mission. They stumble upon a group of seemingly vicious giant rock monsters but soon discover that their leader, Rocky, is actually a gentle artist and musician. Together, the rock monsters help Speck and Rover contact their ship, and soon they're off on another planetary adventure. The silliness of the plot belies the massive and impressive bulk of advanced scientific facts relayed within, including how minerals inform technology, how to measure in microseconds, how to recognize an alpha particle x-ray spectrometer and radiation detector, and the infrastructure of space caves on Mars. And while certainly not every child will gravitate to books with language about a "crystalline mineral composed primarily of silicon dioxide," space-loving readers will feel right at home with the adorable, digitally rendered rovers, and the graphic-novel format with its planet's sunset rose-and-rust palette is pleasing to the eye.

Two robots explore a strange planet and form a friendship along the way. Rover's landing on an unidentified planet is a bit rough, resulting in a damaged communication antenna, but the wheeled robot explorer can still search the planet for new discoveries. One search unearths Speck (which stands for Special Planet Explorer Class-K), an enthusiastic, helpful, slightly ditzy, music-loving robot explorer. When the robots discover "large life-forms composed of solid mineral compounds," otherwise known as giant rock people, Speck's opera music prevents the creatures from crushing them; instead, they start dancing. Rocky, one of the creatures, befriends Rover and Speck and shares his creative rock art, including a huge stone arena with great acoustics. Here, with encouragement from the robots, the rock people create percussion background music, and soon Rocky and his friends break into song ("Rocks will, rocks will help you! / Rocks will, rocks will help you!"). Although the music isn't loud enough to call Rover's ship, Rover, with help from Speck and the rock people, finds another way to make contact. Amusing science-speak like "ignitable mineral masses" (coal) and "nearest spheroid of luminous stellar plasma" (the sun) dot the text, and periodic "Fun Science Facts" add tidbits of relevant information about minerals, microseconds, space caves, and more--and sometimes a joke. Brightly colored cartoon illustrations tell the story clearly and bring to life earnest Rover, adorable Speck, and the fun-loving rock people. An appealing tale that suggests that music is the path to interplanetary harmony. (information on famous rovers, drawing instructions) (Graphic novel. 7-10) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.