COMING OF THE IRON GIANT

A farm boy befriends a huge robot after orchestrating its capture in this abridged, newly illustrated edition of Hughes' classic tale. Grey does take a few liberties: She kits out the armored behemoth with mechanical body parts but gives him an organically mobile mouth, and in one scene the titular character leaves footprints that are much larger than their accompanying description ("the size of a single bed") suggests. Still, the images she pairs with this shortened version of the original's first three chapters do justice to the inscrutable, glowing-eyed giant's menacing bulk as he comes from nowhere to plunge down a cliff, reassembles himself one piece at a time, and then goes about chowing down on tractors and wire fences until clever but much smaller Hogarth lures him into a deep hole. By the time the giant has dug his way out, the empathetic lad has a better idea and leads the metal-eating monster to a tasty junkyard where the two, in a cozy wordless finale, share smiles and a storybook. The rest of the tale is well worth seeking out; in any case, the recent release of a popular film based on Peter Brown's Wild Robot trilogy has led to both a picture-book spinoff and an uptick in interest in free-ranging robots, so this self-contained segment is well timed to catch the wave. Hogarth has light tan skin; other characters are diverse in complexion. A handsome and engaging adaptation that works equally well as a stand-alone and a teaser.(Picture book. 6-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.