Standroid & Dandroid Make a Mess

Two robots—Standroid, who is pink and tall with shovel-shaped legs and a long neck, and Dandroid, who is stocky and yellow—are charged up with “Positron Juice” and ready to go: “All Systems Activating. Initiating play sequence.” As the title suggests, that also means making quite a mess, which Slack conveys with a bevy of flying materials and ample sound effects. The robots squish green balls, crash into blocky, blue shapes, and twirl with yarn until they have thick, fuzzy piles that they wear like hats and mustaches. It’s all fun, until the robots get stuck in the muck. After “scanning surroundings” and “processing data,” the robots detect a solution. Readers may take a cue from the charming robot pair, as Standroid and Dandroid find a way to make cleaning up almost as much fun as making a mess: “Deploy suds squirters. Scrubbers engaged! Mess terminated!” Ages 2–4. (Apr.)