This week’s selection is “Peter And Pablo The Printer: Adventures In Making The Future” by Jeffrey Ito.
This is one of the very few children’s books that deals with 3D printers. As such, it is most definitely a fanciful view of the topic, but that’s often the case with material for younger children.
The story is about “Pablo”, a magical 3D printer that’s been gifted to Peter, a seven year-old boy.
The twist to the story is that Pablo has the magical ability to 3D print literally anything, not just plastic dragons, as most children might do with real 3D printers.
The story proceeds with Peter 3D printing all manner of items, including toys and even a pet dog! The story focuses on the need for printing items, and that it isn’t reasonable to print certain things. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do it. This is a good lesson for any child to learn.
There’s not only a valuable moral lesson in this book, but there’s also the introduction to the concept of 3D printing, something most of us didn’t have when we were children. Peter — and young readers of this book — will grow up with the digital manufacturing concept all ready to go. When they encounter 3D printing in real life, they will have some familiarity, and hopefully even some eagerness to use the technology.
Like Peter in the story, children cannot print anything. Or at least, they can’t now. Perhaps when they are adults the 3D printers of that age will have progressed to the point where they could print almost anything.
But perhaps not a pet dog.
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