TARPLEY, Todd

Opening endpapers set the stage for the evening’s events as a pajama-clad boy desperately chases after three retro robots. A turn of the page reveals, through title and art, that it’s time for bed. The boy guides the bots through their nighttime rituals—“Brush your rotors ’round and ’round. Clean your shields…and power down”—and with everyone successfully tucked in (“Quiet at last, not a peep”), it seems as if the boy’s mission is accomplished. But then…“BEEP! BEEP!” The robots are awake and stalling for time: “My sensor aches!” “I want more oil!” The tired boy remedies the bots’ woes, then finally reaches his limit and throws a Seussian fit: “No more blipping! Blinking-boinking! Winking-whirring! Squinking-oinking!” Undeterred, the robots rouse the boy again, this time to ask for a bedtime story (3 Little Robots), which puts “their boy to sleep”