Caroline Tinker and the Bot

Eight-year-old Caroline has gotten good at fixing Bee, the family's household robot turned reluctant best friend. So when she notices that Bee can spot a sad moment or a funny one without ever quite reacting the right way, she figures it is just one more thing to teach it, the same way she taught it not to mistake the family collie for a mop. She writes her rules carefully. If this happens, feel that. She is sure that if she just covers enough cases, Bee will finally get it right.

Instead, the mismatches keep coming, and they keep getting worse. A tumble down the porch steps meets a badly timed laugh instead of comfort. A proud family celebration meets a strange, mistimed hitch of sympathy instead of joy. Caroline patches each one, certain she is one rule away from cracking it, until the pattern catches up to her in front of her own little brother, at the exact moment he needed Bee to understand him most.

Caroline learns, the harder way, that some things cannot be solved by writing a longer list. Crossed Wires is Book Three in Caroline Tinker and the Bot, a heartfelt, funny series about a Charleston girl, the robot she rebuilt, and everything a person has to learn from the inside, one honest mistake at a time.

Not every problem has a fix. Some just need company.