Greg Van Eekhout. Cog. Harper, 2019.

If you are fan of Gordon Korman, as we are, you will get a kick out of Cog. The main character, such as “he” is, of Cog is Cog, a cognitive development robot made to resemble a twelve-year-old boy. He tells the story.

Cog is programmed to learn from observation and experience. He is told that humans learn from experience, and often learn the most from bad experiences. The humor of Cog can be summed up by what he repeats in various ways:

Together we will exercise poor judgment and have bad experiences and learn things. (51)

And that is just what they do…

“They” are Cog and four other robotic entities manufactured by the uniMIND Corporation. There are Proto, the dog robot; Trashbot, the programmable and mobile janitor and trash compactor; Car, the self-driving automobile; and ADA, the weaponized military robot whose name could stand for a number of different things such as Advanced Destructive Apparatus or Assault Deployment Array.

This is indeed a robotic buddy tale for young adults. Yes, they do exercise poor judgment and have bad experiences. But there are bad guys, too, especially Nathan, the uniMIND scientist who is trying to duplicate Cog’s cognitive abilities for questionable purposes.

Cog’s creator, Gina, who is a kind of mother figure or mentor for Cog, has been transferred to a secret uniMIND facility to do Nathan’s bidding or else. That operation is isolated, literally, on an island in Lake Erie. The five robot friends have to cross the country from California to Ohio—so, yes, this tale has a road trip/Odyssey component as well. The Fellowship of the Trashbot perhaps?

How can they get enough biofuel (i.e., food) or gasoline to make the trip when they only have sixty-three cents among them?

After one of his learning experiences, Cog says: “I wish learning would stop now.” (16)

It doesn’t. And readers will not stop, either—that is, they won’t stop either reading or laughing.