I love this story. Great illustrations and creative storytelling. Loads of fun, from start to finish. I recommend this book. ( )

In this book Wendel the mouse is an inventor who found that his workshop quickly became very messy. To solve this problem, he invented a robot that would tidy up for him. However, his first robot did not turn out quite right, so he made a second robot. This robot was too good at tidying up and threw Wendel in the garbage chute. In order to solve the problem, Wendel used the things in the garbage chute to take control of his workshop once again.
This book is a good example of science fiction because of the elements relating to robots because those elements have a scientific explanation. However, this book also has minor elements of a fantasy book because Wendel is a mouse, a non-human character. However, because the whole story is based around robots and their doings, I would classify this book as science fiction.
Media: colored pencil and ink
Age Appropriateness: Primary

This story is about a small mouse inventor, who every time he makes an invention and it doesn't work, he throws it on his scrap heap. Eventually his workshop gets so dirty that he builds a robot to help him clean, but eventually the robot goes crazy and throws Wendell on the scrap heap as well. Wendell creates a whole army of robots from his scrap heap to help him overthrow the cleaning robot. They are successful and Wendell decides to never throw anything out again.

Media: ink and wash

Uses: - cute story about inventions and good for a read aloud if doing a unit on inventions
-also could be used as a story about recycling

Wendel the mouse was a brilliant inventor, working ceaselessly to improve upon his creations. Not everything he made turned out quite as he intended, of course, but he was always willing to start over. Unfortunately, he had a tendency to throw his mistakes on the rubbish pile, rather than trying to rebuild them. Imagine his dismay, when his ultra-efficient Wendelbot tosses him out, in the process of tidying! Can Wendel retake his workshop? Will his experience teach him the value of reusing...?

An original picture-book adventure from Chris Riddell - whose artwork can also be seen in the immensely popular children's fantasy series, The Edge Chronicles - Wendel's Workshop was an enjoyable book. As always, the illustrations were delightful, with both mouse and robots - from the endearing Clunk to the frightening Wendelbot - shown in expressive detail. The message of reusing is there, but never overwhelms the story. An entertaining tale, that will be particularly popular with young robot lovers, I think... ( )