Excerpt from How To Say Goodbye In Robot by Natalie Standiford, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

She gave me a piercing, angry stare then that scared me. Her eyes seemed to say, “Where did my sweet little daughter go? And who is this hard-hearted robot?”

I looked at the dead Goebbels. The moment seemed to call for a bit of ceremony, a gesture of some sort. So I stiffened my limbs and held my hands flat and straight, like a mime. With an expressionless face I jerked my hands over the gerbil’s little body and squeaked, “Ee er oo. Ee er ee. Eh-eh.”

Mom lifted her head. “Oh my God,” she said. “What are you doing?”

“I’m giving the gerbil a final benediction,” I said. “In Robot.”

Excerpted from How To Say Goodbye In Robot by Natalie Standiford. Copyright © 2009 by Natalie Standiford. Excerpted by permission of Scholastic. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.