UNBOXING LIBBY: Find Out What Max Did on Her Summer Vacation

A.I.Cademy Girls are a line of robotic social companions, each with their own personalities and plenty of fun accessories. They’re packaged like dolls and programmed with memories and personalities that make them feel real. Wendys are smart. Robins are sporty. Noras are artsy. And Libbys? Well, Libbys are supposed to be sweet and cheerful, the perfect best friend. But what if one of them wasn’t feeling cheery and instead started thinking for themselves? In Unboxing Libby by Steph Cherrywell, Max is about to find out.

✨WANT TO WIN A COPY?: We’re giving away TWO! ENTER HERE!

Libby “Max” Maxwell isn’t like the other Libbys. While they’re all out there being perfect, Max finds herself breaking the norms. She doesn’t always feel bubby, in fact, a lot of the time she feels frustrated and confused. She’s drawn to Roxanne, the mean girl of the bunch, wanting to get to know her better even though it goes against her code. None of it makes sense. Max is programmed a certain way that she shouldn’t be able to stray from, and she’s about to discover and untangle a web of reasons why.

Book cover for Unboxing Libby by Steph Cherrywell

AI meets American Girl Dolls in this quirky novel about a group of preteen androids who have been cast aside and have to make their own way in the world.

Max isn’t always sweet and bubbly. That wouldn’t be an issue except for the fact that she’s programmed to be. “Max” isn’t even her real name. She’s a Libby– one of the most popular A.I.Cademy Girl social robots, which top the sales charts for girls ages eight to twelve. They look almost human and there’s a companion to fit every personality. Wendys are smart. Robins are sporty. Noras are artistic. And Libbys? As the box they come in says: Always chipper, cheerful, and sweet, Libby(TM) makes the perfect friend.

But despite her packaging and her programmed memories, Max is feeling the opposite of perfect. The only thing she wants to know is why. But this question uncovers bigger answers than she bargained for – like the shocking fate of the other A.I.Cademy Girls, and what the founders of their idyllic community are really hiding. Max may not be the perfect Libby, but she’ll have to embrace what makes her uniquely Max to save herself and her friends before they’re all sent to the junkyard.

Unboxing Libby
AUTHOR: Steph Cherrywell
PUBLISHER: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
DATE: April 1, 2025

You’ll have to read Unboxing Libby to find out the unsettling truth about what’s really going on, but before you do, we’ve got a little peek into Max’s mind in the moments she’s realizing a few very crucial things about herself.

Author Steph Cherrywell shared something juicy, for our readers eyes only. It’s a work in progress, an essay Max is writing for school. See the world through the eyes of this tween android and a peek at the cracks in the perfectly curated world of A.I.Cademy Girls.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation by Libby “Max” Maxwell

NOTE: PINK are Max’s comments to herself. GREEN are Roxanne’s thoughts. ~~CROSSED OUT~~ are Max’s true thoughts that she edited out.

Technically, I didn’t do anything on my summer vacation, because I wasn’t alive yet. But this is supposed to be at least a couple of pages, so I’m going to do my best!

(By the way, Ms. Cash, I know you just started existing too, and mostly you’re doing a pretty good job with the teaching, but maybe go through the lesson plan and switch out some of the assignments that don’t make sense for robots? I don’t think whoever wrote it originally had us in mind for a lot of these.) <—Mom says I should probably try not to lecture adults so much, even when I have a point!

So, here’s what I know about where I come from: I’m one of the A.I.Cademy Girls line of social companion robots. We have multiple character models, a lot of optional accessories, and even an animated TV show where all the different characters go to school together. I’m a “Libby” model, and my main trait is being cheerful and friendly, always, 100% of the time, ~~even when I don’t feel like it.~~ Libby is one of the most popular models and they made a ton of us. In fact, they made a few more than they needed, because I ended up going on clearance. And from there, I’ve got the same story as everyone here: I got leased to a terraforming company to help test out their Mars colony before the humans move in. So some things did happen to me, I guess, but since I was only activated a couple of weeks ago I wasn’t awake for any of it.

Luckily, that’s where my friend Roxanne comes in! Roxanne models are based on the mean-girl villain of the show, and they aren’t sold in stores – they’re just display models that interact with the others in the showroom, to show how well the for-sale models can deal with disruption. And that means Roxanne actually was operational on Earth for a couple of years before being shipped here!

Roxanne told me that, being a villain and everything, it’s against her principles to actually do homework and she wasn’t going to turn anything in. So I asked if I could interview her as a source for this essay, and she said it was also against her principles to help with homework.

So then I told her that if she helped me but I didn’t credit her then technically it would be a kind of cheating, and that she would do. For an agent of chaos, she can be pretty easy to predict sometimes. (Just don’t tell her I thanked her!) BY THE WAY, GUESS WHAT, I AM A GIANT BUTTHEAD AND I DID A SUPER BAD JOB OF HIDING THIS, HA HA HA

My secret source told me that we get assembled in a factory in Detroit, and from there we’re packaged and go out to showrooms. In every showroom, there’s a few models of each type for potential buyers to interact with and get to know, but when you decide who you want, you don’t actually take a display model—you pick a fresh, brand new one off the shelves, so you can have exactly the surface styling and accessories you want. That’s all just an aesthetic choice, since our personalities are all ~~supposed to be~~ the same.

So, what I did on my summer vacation was mostly just stand in a box, not actually existing yet and not getting bought. I still have that box, and I found a lot of little fingerprints on the polypropylene sheet, so I know some kids did look at me and just decided against it, or their parents told them they had enough robots at home already, or whatever.

I kind of wonder about those different possible lives, where I live on Earth, and I’m imprinted on a child, and I know a completely different set of people. Would I have been happier with that life? I love my mom, and my friends, ~~but sometimes it’s like I have a part missing and I don’t know what it is. I’m supposed to be the same as the other Libbies but I think I’m the only one who feels like~~ so all things considered, right here is probably just about the best gosh darn place that any Libby could ever want to be!

(Okay, note to me, do a clean draft before turning this in to Ms. Cash. Parts of it got just a little too un-Libby! Also, find a place to keep my homework that Roxanne doesn’t know about…)