This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2025 by Steph Cherrywell

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Cherrywell, Steph, author.

Title: Unboxing Libby / Steph Cherrywell.

Description: First edition. | New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2025. | Audience: Ages 8–12. | Summary: “A preteen android based on a popular TV character grapples with new friendships, insecurities, and learning how to embrace her individuality.”—Provided by publisher

Identifiers: LCCN 2024007737 | ISBN 9780316577090 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316577113 (ebook)

Subjects: CYAC: Robots—Fiction. | Individuality—Fiction. | Space colonies—Fiction. | Mars (Planet)—Fiction. | LCGFT: Science fiction. | Novels.

Classification: LCC PZ7.C41997 Un 2025 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024007737

ISBNs: 978-0-316-57709-0 (hardcover), 978-0-316-57711-3 (ebook)

E3-20250207-JV-NF-ORI

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1: Activation

Chapter 2: Calibration

Chapter 3: The Libbies

Chapter 4: Roxanne

Chapter 5: A.I.Cademy Girls

Chapter 6: The Roxanne Plan

Chapter 7: Mom

Chapter 8: The Izzies

Chapter 9: Recalibration

Chapter 10: Open House

Chapter 11: Strawberries

Chapter 12: My Outsides

Chapter 13: The Outside

Chapter 14: My Insides

Chapter 15: My Other Side

Chapter 16: Best Friends Club

Chapter 17: Surprises

Chapter 18: Stickers

Chapter 19: Storm

Chapter 20: Ms. Jessie

Chapter 21: Namuh

Chapter 22: The Thousand-Year Lake

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Cover

Table of Contents

Page List

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For Mom

Libby™ is a shining star whose generous heart brings joy wherever she goes! She can find the silver lining in every cloud and turn every frown into a smile. Always chipper, cheerful, and sweet, Libby™ makes the perfect friend.

Libby™ Basic Kit comes with one Generation 4 Libby™, Libby’s Music Box™, digital copies of A.I.Cademy Girls™ seasons 1–5, and two starter outfits.

Additional outfits, replacement parts, and Grumpus the Tortoise™ sold separately.

CHAPTER 1

ACTIVATION

My mom saved the clothes I was born in. I asked her once why she bothered, when they were the same yellow T-shirt and jeans with floral decals that every Libby comes with. She said it wasn’t the same, because these were mine.

I checked with some of the other kids who had Noras for moms to find out if they’d done the same thing, and mine’s the only one. That’s okay with me. I kind of like that Mom’s a little different; it makes her my mom, not just another Gen-4 Nora.

Here’s what the side of Mom’s shipping carton says: Nora is a creative free spirit who finds inspiration in every moment and a work of art in every smile! Noras are usually kind of moody, too, and my mom definitely fits the pattern. That’s why Dr. Bhanjee recommended a cheerful model like Libby for her in the first place.

I didn’t know any of this stuff when I was activated. All I knew was that suddenly, pop, I existed, and a million little start-up programs started going at once, pouring words and concepts and basic motor functions into my head.

Mom was hugging me when I powered on, so my first second of awareness was in her arms. I guess she picked up somewhere that it helps with the bonding process, but in my case, it mostly just scared the heck out of me. The first conscious thing I ever did was yell and push her away. I don’t remember my first words. I was still unzipping language files, so it was probably some kind of basic error message.

“Sorry!” Mom said, letting go. My eyes whirred as the brand-new irises came into focus. I looked her over. She was tall and thin, with platinum-blond hair down to her shoulders.

“Inishullizing,” I slurred. “Shecking files.”

Everything was getting dumped into my brain all at once. The feel of the air on my face. The bedsprings under my butt. Music. What an elephant was. Everything.

“Sure, sure,” Mom said, backing away. “Take your time, honey.”

I stood up. New plastic squeaked as my knees flexed for the first time. My mind was still fuzzy, but my legs seemed to work. I swung my arms. I wiggled my fingers. I flipped through the different lenses in my eyes.

I looked around the room. Hollow rectangular solid. Interior. Gravity detected. Setting local orientation. Let direction Y = “down.” Defining walkable surface. Analyzing irregularities. Shipping material. Gen-4 Nora (Adult). Unknown object 0000000001. Qualities: rectangular. Vertical orientation. Reflective. INITIAL VISUAL AUTODIAGNOSTIC FLAG TRIGGERED. Calculating pathing. Calculated.

Stepping around the me-size box lying on the floor, I walked to the full-length mirror.

A perfectly ordinary Gen-4 Libby (Adolescent) looked back at me. A self-recognition file unpacked, and there I was, me, in the mirror. I had a wide, friendly mouth, soft hazel eyes, and a light dusting of freckles. Later, I learned that market research found that the optional freckles that you could get with the Gen-3s tested well, so now they came standard. According to focus groups, they made me look “peppy” and “relatable.”

My hair was a bright lemon yellow with star-shaped white patches; my skin was Shade 4 (Cornsilk), like my mom’s; and I had flat, circular plates on the sides of my head instead of ears.

Ears? What are ears? I wondered, and that’s when my brain told me what humans were and that I was something else.

“Everything up and running?” Mom asked. She was forcing herself to sound cheerful, but her voice caught at the end. She spoke more softly. “Libby?”

I looked past the me in the mirror to the reflected room, decorated in ten kinds of pink, and to the woman sitting on the frilly cake of a bed, looking nervous and hopeful.

Then I looked back inside my head and discovered a read-only file filled with simulated childhood memories.

It started like this:

I am Libby (MAXWELL). The day I was first activated is my twelfth birthday.

I am a shining star whose generous heart brings joy wherever I go. I can find the silver lining in any cloud and turn any frown into a smile.

My parents are my (MOTHER)(NORA)(MAXWELL).

My best friend is (NO IMPRINTEE SET).

And after that came my life, in memory after memory that glowed with warmth and kindness. The time I helped a sad old man rekindle his Christmas spirit. The time I gave up the leading role in a dance recital for a shy but talented girl who just needed more confidence. In fact, I couldn’t remember one single bad thing I’d done over the course of twelve perfect years.

“Libby? You—you know who you are?” my mother asked.

“I know,” I said, and turned around.

I’d just met this woman, but my mind overflowed with her. Cookies she’d baked, damaged knees she’d kissed, the times I sat on her lap and painted as the two of us covered a canvas with bright, smeary colors. Memories of a little girl I’d never actually been.

“And I know you’re my mom and—and I love you,” I said, and realized it was true.

Mom pulled me into a bear hug. Her silky hair fell across my face, and I noticed it had white patches, too. Hers were shaped like blotches of spilled milk—or maybe paint?

Spark Marks, my brain unpacked. My Spark Mark lets me show off my own special way to be me!

Mom squeezed me harder, like she was worried I would push her away again, but this time, I knew what a hug was. I hugged her back.

“Oh, Libby,” she whispered. “I love you, too. I love you more than anything else in the world.”

Droplets of water rolled down her cheeks. Tears, said my object recognizer. Happiness (95 percent confidence), reported my emotional context subroutine. An efficiency optimizer noted that the ability to make tears added complexity to our design without being especially useful. But out of all these little programs, a mind was solidifying into me, and I wanted to cry, too—mostly from sheer relief. It’s terrifying being activated, with everything pouring in on you all at once while you’re not sure what anything is.

But I’d made it. All my systems were in order, I knew who I was, and the bond with my mother was fully established. I let her hold me, relishing it. I was awake, and alive, and I was a Libby, a shining star. I was safe, I was fine, and everything about me was perfectly normal.

As far as I knew.