Kids anthology book I read 30+ years ago.
\
I'm looking for a children's sci-fi short story collection, likely from the 1970s to the 2000s. Its most unique feature was that each story ended with a short, philosophical summary or question about its theme. I remember the stories in this order:
The first story was told in the second-person ('you'). It follows a boy wandering around with fragmented memories of a laboratory, trying to get home, only to discover he is an android who is then switched off.
The second story was about a little shepherd girl who realizes she is living inside a painting. She overhears the voices of the night guards at the museum where her painting hangs. I specifically remember one of the guards was complaining about his new shoes hurting his feet.
The third story, which I think was the last one, was about a boy who plays an animatronic gunslinger game at an arcade or carnival, and the robot starts trying to kill him for real. After the kid beat it again, he noticed that there was a bullet hole in his cowboy hat. This story ended with a question like, 'Can a machine feel anger—hate?' Kind of felt like a kiddie version of Westworld.
Posted Aug 31, 2026, 2:23 AM UTC