Fuzzy, by Tom Angleberger
Maxine Zelaster (aka Max) attends seventh grade at Vanguard One Middle School. Students at Vanguard must pass weekly tests in each subject as a mandate of the Federal School Board’s Constant UpGrade program. They must also follow a very strict conduct code or incur discipline tags (dtags) and citizenship infractions which decrease their cumulative scores. The formidable vice principal (aka robot BARBARA) keeps track of everything.
Enter Fuzzy, a “fuzzy” logic robot that is part of the Robot Integration Program. He’s short, wears a funny looking black wig, and dresses in outdated clothes, but he’s a state-of-the-art free thinking robot with artificial intelligence designed to let Fuzzy think, feel, and learn as any other middle school student would.
Fuzzy’s first day at the school, he suffers information overload, freezes up, and falls over. Then, with a few tweaks, Fuzzy begins to change. The scientists choose Max as Fuzzy’s guide; they want her to teach Fuzzy everything she knows about surviving middle school. She’s super excited, but the assignment proves detrimental to Max’s standing at the school. Every time she turns around, she incurs another dtag, and, no matter how hard she studies, her test grades plummet.
Fuzzy begins to realize that something is fishy about the way BARBARA reports test scores and hands out discipline. He needs to find a way to help Max before she gets kicked out and sent to a remedial school. Max makes a discovery as well. What can she do to save her friend Fuzzy from certain destruction?
