Social companion robots are no longer just science fiction. For example, after a children's reading robot became inactive, most households chose to keep it.

Like a lot of children, my sons, Toby, 7, and Anton, 4, are obsessed with robots. In the children’s books they devour at bedtime, happy, helpful robots pop up more often than even dragons or dinosaurs ...

The books in Peter Brown’s “Wild Robot” trilogy were the first to wallop my son with the mix of tragedy and joy that define great art and also real life. “It made me sad that Roz had to leave ...