Tin by Pádraig Kenny

Tin by Pádraig Kenny is an absolutely stunning work of art about a boy named Christopher. Christopher is content being the only “proper” boy in a shoddy engineer, Absalom’s, workshop, surrounded by mechanicals, robots that can feel and speak. However, one day, Manda, a mechanical made to look and be like a little girl, loses her teddy bear in the middle of the street. When Manda runs to get her teddy bear, a car going far too fast nearly flattens her. Yet it doesn’t, it doesn’t kill Manda, it doesn’t kill Manda because Christopher jumped in the way to save her. When the other mechanicals run to see if he’s okay, surprisingly, they find that he’s alive.

Christopher is alive, but he’s a mechanical. A mechanical that goes against the laws of their world. Christopher was made with refined propulsion, meaning that he was given a soul, and one of the greatest engineers of the time, Richard Blake, wants to learn how.

So Blake sends two of his minions, Reeves and Dunlop, to pose as the Agency, the law enforcement/government, to retrieve Christopher. All so he can learn how refined propulsion works, and how to use it to take over the world. Blake’s plan works, sort of, well the first part at least.

Jack, Round Rob, and Gripper, three other of Absalom’s mechanicals, know that they must rescue Christopher, one of their bestest friends, from the terrible people that took him away.

I really loved this novel for the way Kenny really expresses the characteristics of every character in the story. You know that Christopher is someone they all look up to and that Round Rob is the kindest of them all and loves everyone else the most. And even though Gripper can’t speak, you know that he wouldn’t hurt a fly. Kenny really captured everyones’ emotions so wonderfully as well it’s like he took a video of the time they were born to when they died and fed it into your brain. I’ve loved this book since I was little and it’s still amongst my favorite books.