Maxine Zelaster (aka Max) attends seventh grade at Vanguard One Middle School. Students at Vanguard must pass weekly tests in each subject as a mandate of the Federal School Board’s Constant UpGrade program. They must also follow a very strict conduct code or incur discipline tags (dtgs) and citizenship infractions which decrease their cumulative scores. The formidable vice principal (aka robot BARBARA) keeps track of everything. Enter Fuzzy, a “fuzzy” logic robot that is part of the Robot Integration Program. He’s short, wears a funny looking black wig, and dresses in outdated clothes, but he’s a state-of-the-art free thinking robot with artificial intelligence designed to let Fuzzy think, feel, and learn as any other middle school student would. Fuzzy’s first day at the school, he suffers information overload, freezes up, and falls over. Then, with a few tweaks, Fuzzy begins to change. The scientists choose Max as Fuzzy’s guide; they want her to teach Fuzzy everything she knows about surviving middle school. She’s super excited, but the assignment proves detrimental to Max’s standing at the school. Every time she turns around, she incurs another dtag, and, no matter how hard she studies, her test grades plummet. Fuzzy begins to realize that something is fishy about the way BARBARA reports test scores and hands out discipline. He needs to find a way to help Max before she gets kicked out and sent to a remedial school. Max makes a discovery as well. What can she do to save her friend Fuzzy from certain destruction?
©2024 Kathy Maxwell at https://bookskidslike.com ( )

Fast read, nice exploration of humanity intersecting with artificial intelligence, in both good and bad ways. Funny. Middle school/ 7th grade protagonist Maxine (Max) has been judged problematic by her automated school, which is working on getting her removed. Fortunately, Max is fascinated and friendly with the visiting robot student, Fuzzy, who quickly becomes an ally in surviving middle school. For any kid who feels unfairly targeted by school discipline and wants to see someone getting their own back. ( )

Fuzzy was a fun engaging read that middle schoolers would enjoy. I loved this futuristic plot of artificial intelligence pretty much taking over Max & Fuzzy's school. Fuzzy is in fact a robot that can think for itself, and learn for itself. Barbara is the school's "monitor" that monitors everything and gives the students and teachers performance grades based on how they do things. She even grades them on washing their hands, and they are only allowed to improve their scores as time goes on otherwise it is not acceptable. Barbara wants to intervene with Fuzzy and she begins giving demerits to Max every time she gets in the way. Barbara begins to alter Max's scores and ultimately tries to get Max kicked out of school. This is a great novel about technology that while a lot of it is convenient and beneficial to society, sometimes it is important to think for yourself and do things the way you know is right.

I can see myself using a coding unit for this book. It would be a fun interactive activity with technology and we could recreate a scene from the book that kids have to navigate through (like how Fuzzy need to navigate the hallways full of kids) or a different part of the book. ( )

This book is a fictional story about a robot student named Fuzzy who attends Vanguard Middle School. In this clever middle school adventure, Fuzzy is being trained to act like a regular student through the robot integration program!
As you can imagine, being a robot and trying to walk through crowded hallways would be a pretty big challenge. That is until Fuzzy’s team of technicians enlists of the help of Maxine “Max” Zelaster to help! Max is always getting in trouble with BARBARA, the schools digital evaluation system. She is eager to help her new robot classmate with learning how to survive seventh grade, but Max keeps earning demerits every time she tries to assist him. Max wants to help her robotic buddy, but she doesn't want to be expelled or get yelled at by her parents in the process.
Max and Fuzzy have to learn that sometimes you can’t always listen to authority and you have to do what you think is right! Fuzzy is SOOOO intelligent that he is able to program himself. When he finds out that his new friend Max is in need of help, he creates a program code HelpMax do whatever he can to prevent her from getting kicked out of middle school, even if that means destroying himself in the process!

I enjoyed reading this book and feel that the characters are relatable. Who wouldn't want to have a robot friend at school? Even if it may not always be easy! I found it very interesting how technologically advanced this book was in terms of even the operations of the school. It's interesting to think about what it would be like working in a school like this sometime in the future! ( )

Cute story! Just the right mix of adventure and futuristic AI and middle school action. My 4th/5th graders are going to love finding this in the new book section of our library! ( )