Surrounded by noisy classmates, Millie remains quiet, unsure about how to speak up. She dreads Show and Tell, hiding away in a storage room at home to fret over how to avoid it.
The storage room turns out to be a treasure trove of materials for Millie's inventive nature, which culminates in her restoration of a broken cleaning robot. What a shock when her efforts eventually lead to its robotic voice saying, "Hi. I'm Arnold."
Arnold turns out to be an excellent assistant when Millie is inventing. He listens intently to her plans, and she realizes "it was the first time she had ever really enjoyed talking."
Author and illustrator Yiting Lee was herself a quiet child. She didn't have a robot friend, but she did have her love of art, which led her to earn her MA in children's book illustration at the Cambridge School of Art. Her expressive pictures not only convey Millie's growth from fearfulness to passion; they also put the reader right in her shoes. When Millie eventually does stand up for Show and Tell, her classmates each look three times her size, an image conveying her sense of powerlessness ... until Arnold hesitantly tries to speak and gets her talking about the inventions that matter so much to her.
Four-to-eight-year-old readers will appreciate this story's originality, gentleness, and happy ending. Perhaps some of them will find their voices for the first time, or support another child in feeling free to speak.
