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ehparrish's review
adventurous
challenging
inspiring
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
marisatn's review
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
lauriehnatiuk's review
4.0
Thank you to Edelweiss + and the publisher for a digital eARC of this book.
When I first stumbled across my first Jake Burt book (his first book) Greetings From Witness Protection, I knew I had found another author I would be sharing with kids. Why? He GETS middle-grade kids – their humour, what topics and issues THEY want to learn about and how they interact with one another. Ever since reading that first book, I eagerly await and look for his new releases. When he first shared on Twitter that he was writing a sci-fi book talking about the human body, I was EXCITED because I love all things anatomy and physiology.
Mr. Burt wrote this story pre-pandemic, which is another reason this story is relevant. Eerily close to home, Mr. Burt creates a world where there are similarities that we are experiencing today – staying at home due to a pandemic, having items delivered, and young people taught virtually in the safety of their home.
Set in the future, Cleo Porter and her parents, like the rest of the world, lives indoors. No one goes out, and no one comes in due to a strain of the flu that nearly wiped out the entire human population. Everything they need gets delivered to their portal via drones. Cleo hopes to follow in her mother’s footsteps as a surgeon and studies virtually with her instructor Mrs. VAIN (Virtual Adaptive Instructional Network). Cleo’s life is busy preparing for exams until the delivery of life-saving medicine comes through their portal. The problem is, Miriam Wendemore-Adisa does not live there. Right person, wrong address, and Cleo’s parents preoccupied with their work leave the issue with Cleo thinking it will be a quick fix, only it’s not.
The ordering system does not recognize the mistake, and now Cleo has to decide what to do next. Cleo believes her only option is to deliver the medicine herself. Cleo and readers discover the world beyond the portal. Cleo ventures out beyond the confines of her apartment, into the intricacies of the building and outside. As she figures out how to find Miriam Wendemore-Adisa’s portal, Cleo compares the different components of the building to the various human body systems that she is studying.
Despite all of Cleo’s good intentions to deliver the medicine, she finds herself outside the building and at the mercy of the environment. Only then does she learn that people exist on the outside when she finds Angie, an older woman and a young girl named Paige. Both become her teacher in other ways and help her eventually get back inside.
Readers will relate to being inside, and what use to be everyday activities such as playing outside and going shopping now look very different. There are bigger takeaways to this story; how Cleo gains confidence and decides how compassion and empathy will guide her rather than rules and regulations, how the confines of a room are not what is best for everyone and how we look after or don’t look after everyone in a crisis. The lesson of helping out others and doing the right thing is a timely reminder when younger people get bombarded with many adults who are struggling with this during the pandemic.
I am not surprised that I have another book of Mr. Burt’s to recommend for teaching colleagues and readers of middle-grade books and look forward to his fifth book.
HIGHLY RECOMMEND: Gr. 4+
When I first stumbled across my first Jake Burt book (his first book) Greetings From Witness Protection, I knew I had found another author I would be sharing with kids. Why? He GETS middle-grade kids – their humour, what topics and issues THEY want to learn about and how they interact with one another. Ever since reading that first book, I eagerly await and look for his new releases. When he first shared on Twitter that he was writing a sci-fi book talking about the human body, I was EXCITED because I love all things anatomy and physiology.
Mr. Burt wrote this story pre-pandemic, which is another reason this story is relevant. Eerily close to home, Mr. Burt creates a world where there are similarities that we are experiencing today – staying at home due to a pandemic, having items delivered, and young people taught virtually in the safety of their home.
Set in the future, Cleo Porter and her parents, like the rest of the world, lives indoors. No one goes out, and no one comes in due to a strain of the flu that nearly wiped out the entire human population. Everything they need gets delivered to their portal via drones. Cleo hopes to follow in her mother’s footsteps as a surgeon and studies virtually with her instructor Mrs. VAIN (Virtual Adaptive Instructional Network). Cleo’s life is busy preparing for exams until the delivery of life-saving medicine comes through their portal. The problem is, Miriam Wendemore-Adisa does not live there. Right person, wrong address, and Cleo’s parents preoccupied with their work leave the issue with Cleo thinking it will be a quick fix, only it’s not.
The ordering system does not recognize the mistake, and now Cleo has to decide what to do next. Cleo believes her only option is to deliver the medicine herself. Cleo and readers discover the world beyond the portal. Cleo ventures out beyond the confines of her apartment, into the intricacies of the building and outside. As she figures out how to find Miriam Wendemore-Adisa’s portal, Cleo compares the different components of the building to the various human body systems that she is studying.
Despite all of Cleo’s good intentions to deliver the medicine, she finds herself outside the building and at the mercy of the environment. Only then does she learn that people exist on the outside when she finds Angie, an older woman and a young girl named Paige. Both become her teacher in other ways and help her eventually get back inside.
Readers will relate to being inside, and what use to be everyday activities such as playing outside and going shopping now look very different. There are bigger takeaways to this story; how Cleo gains confidence and decides how compassion and empathy will guide her rather than rules and regulations, how the confines of a room are not what is best for everyone and how we look after or don’t look after everyone in a crisis. The lesson of helping out others and doing the right thing is a timely reminder when younger people get bombarded with many adults who are struggling with this during the pandemic.
I am not surprised that I have another book of Mr. Burt’s to recommend for teaching colleagues and readers of middle-grade books and look forward to his fifth book.
HIGHLY RECOMMEND: Gr. 4+
lisamcdreads's review
4.0
Cleo Porter and the Body Electric is a fantastic book! I am always on the lookout for great science fiction books to add to my library collection that will immediately hook the students and this does not disappoint. Cleo Porter lives in isolation in an apartment with her parents. She has never left her apartment because of a deadly virus. Everything the family needs is transported via drone to their door and delivered through a tube. Then one day she gets the wrong package by mistake of critical medicine and this sets her on a journey to bring it to it's proper owner. I will definitely be buying this one for my library when it is out. Kind of surreal to be reading it during the Covid 19 pandemic.
jbrooxd's review
3.0
3.5 stars = Good+
This was a fascinating post-pandemic story that was written long before we heard the word Covid-19. I was grateful that the story takes place far enough in the future that the focus was on Cleo and her quest. The pandemic had been dealt with, and humanity was living in the environment created to save everyone. So this new environment was a major factor, but the disease itself was less of one, so the parallels to 2020 and now 2021 were there but weren't a major factor.
I loved Cleo! This is another fantastic Jake Burt protagonist - bright, compassionate, determined, brave. Her little e-team with the drone and her virtual teacher was terrific. Cleo is alone for a lot of the book, but this team gave her some company and conversation, which was great.
I was almost as frustrated as Cleo in the end. As an adult, I wanted more from the resolution to Cleo's quest, but the focus on her adventures in the moment, and the fun closing scene will probably be satisfying for most of the intended audience.
This was a fascinating post-pandemic story that was written long before we heard the word Covid-19. I was grateful that the story takes place far enough in the future that the focus was on Cleo and her quest. The pandemic had been dealt with, and humanity was living in the environment created to save everyone. So this new environment was a major factor, but the disease itself was less of one, so the parallels to 2020 and now 2021 were there but weren't a major factor.
I loved Cleo! This is another fantastic Jake Burt protagonist - bright, compassionate, determined, brave. Her little e-team with the drone and her virtual teacher was terrific. Cleo is alone for a lot of the book, but this team gave her some company and conversation, which was great.
I was almost as frustrated as Cleo in the end. As an adult, I wanted more from the resolution to Cleo's quest, but the focus on her adventures in the moment, and the fun closing scene will probably be satisfying for most of the intended audience.
mzrachelsuperlibarian's review
3.0
This is not a bad book. In fact, if I were an eight-year-old child reviewing this story, I’d probably give it 5 stars. Cleo Porter is charming, inventive, and easy to identify with. The lack of skin color descriptions will allow kids of any race to picture her looking more like them even though she was probably intended to be seen as white. The story is engaging. And if I were a child, the twist ending might have actually surprised me. As an adult, however, I knew exactly what was happening from the moment the medication was delivered. However, despite knowing where the book was headed, I still enjoyed the ride.
evamadera1's review
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
It wasn't until after I finished the book that I realized that I have read another book by Jake Burt before, also for SCASL. I enjoyed that one as well.
In this book, Cleo lives in a society that has completely walled itself off after the spread of a mysterious influenza pandemic to prevent any possible spread of contamination. The author mentions in the note at the end that although he wrote this book prior to the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, he was getting ready to publish the book while locked down in his home. Although some parallels exist, unfortunately for Burt, I think society's actual reaction to a real pandemic makes his book stretch the suspension of disbelief a little too much.
I still enjoyed the story that we got; Cleo is quite an engaging character. I loved seeing how she would respond to each new challenge presented to her. I also appreciated that Cleo's discovery that what she's always known may not be the whole story did not turn this book into a "take down the man" plot line as well as the fact that Burt left some of the conclusions open to interpretation at the end of the book.
In this book, Cleo lives in a society that has completely walled itself off after the spread of a mysterious influenza pandemic to prevent any possible spread of contamination. The author mentions in the note at the end that although he wrote this book prior to the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, he was getting ready to publish the book while locked down in his home. Although some parallels exist, unfortunately for Burt, I think society's actual reaction to a real pandemic makes his book stretch the suspension of disbelief a little too much.
I still enjoyed the story that we got; Cleo is quite an engaging character. I loved seeing how she would respond to each new challenge presented to her. I also appreciated that Cleo's discovery that what she's always known may not be the whole story did not turn this book into a "take down the man" plot line as well as the fact that Burt left some of the conclusions open to interpretation at the end of the book.
yzlae's review
adventurous
funny
inspiring
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0