The first book in the Camelot Code series, The Once and Future Geek , mixed time travel between the medieval world of King Arthur and our own, and it is a very entertaining book. The second book in the series, Geeks and Holy Grail (Hyperion, October 2019), is also entertaining (though not quite as funny; King Arthur as a modern day high school student is hard to beat....). When Morgana, sworn enemy of King Arthur, attacks the druids of Avalon, Nimue, the youngest of them, takes the Holy Grail and runs with it. King Arthur is dying, and only the Grail can save him. Desperate to keep it from falling into Morgana's hands, she stumbles into Merlin's Crystal Cave. But instead of Merlin there to help her (he's on vacation in Los Vegas, in our time), there's only his very inexperienced apprentice, Emrys. His attempt to hide the grail works, in a sense--as a small, flatulent dragon, it sure doesn't look much like a grail. But it isn't much use to Arthur as a...
Penny Rose is new in town, and has no friends yet. In the shed behind her house, she starts making little robots out of bits and pieces of salvaged stuff (trash to those with no vision), and to her delight, they come alive! They can move and communicate of their own volition!
Then, after initial uncertainty, Penny Rose becomes friends with Lark, a neighbor girl. Lark is an unusual girl, not just because she's an avid birdwatcher and birds bring her little gifts, and she too had no friends. Penny Rose introduces Lark to the robots, and together the girls work to turn the shed into a magical world for them to play in. And girls and robots are happy.
But then, Penny Rose is invited to join a secret science club. The members are two cool popular girls, who seem really nice, and one boy, who doesn't. Joining means leaving Lark behind....and putting her robots in danger (it's not a nice boy). Fortunately Lark is able to forgive Penny Rose's unkind withdrawal from their friendship, and helps her save the robots. And Penny Rose becomes a better friend, telling the science club girls that she won't join unless Lark is invited too.
So the appeal to young me comes from having a neighbor friend to build wildly and creatively with, which I did, though we had no magic robots. That part of the story, before the invitation to the science club brought tension, was my favorite bit. There's lots of detail about small found things (including bird gifts) being used to make other things, and it was delightful.
The strained friendship wasn't delightful, of course, and this thread of the story was less interesting and relatable to grown-up me (there are no cool girls I wish were my friends in my daily life, nor is there any friendship drama going on that I'm aware of). A lot of the intended audience, though, are suffering through such things, and doubtless will relate, and perhaps even be heartened by Penny Rose's new-found maturity and loyalty.
The magic of the robots is never explained, it just is. And this is something that, regardless of your age, will bother you, or not, depending on your personality. It kind of bothered me a bit, but it would have changed the story too much to try to Explain things that couldn't be explained anyway, so I shrugged it off.
In any event--I'm an archaeologist, which means I'm trained to walk with my eyes on the ground and pick things up, and I have a box of found things in my barn that I was hoping my boys would turn into art, but that never happened. So if you are a new kid to my neighborhood, you are welcome to come over and create with me! Especially if you know how to solder. Even more so if birds bring you cool small things on a regular basis.
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