Michael Rex: Hi. My name is Michael Rex. I am the author / illustrator of Facts vs. Opinions vs. Robots This idea has been brewing for a long time.

I have two boys who are now 13 years old and 15 years old, but, as they were growing up, they often thought that their opinion was fact. For instance, they said that broccoli was disgusting and no one should eat it, but we would always be talking about, well, that's an opinion. I would say to them, "I like broccoli," and they would say, "No, broccoli is terrible." I would say, "Well, that's your opinion, and my opinion is that I like it." Then, I would say, "Is there a fact?" Then, I would say, "Well, let's decide on a fact about broccoli," and we would decide it's green, so we would start having these conversations about facts versus opinions, and many of them took place at the dining room table.

One of the great things about also being the illustrator of the book is that I got to draw robots. I have grown up loving robots, and I've never had the chance to do a robot picture book, so it's been on my list of things to do for a very long time. While I was thinking about this book that was Facts vs. Opinions, I was also thinking about a robot book. At some point, I can't remember when, I said to myself, "What if it's just called Facts vs. Opinions vs. Robots?" I use the robots to teach the difference between facts and opinions, which gave me the opportunity to draw robots and talk about facts and opinions. I do try to put humor into everything that I do. I believe that if we are laughing, we are listening more, and we're paying attention more. I also believe that, from my own experience, school can be a stressful environment. You're constantly trying to learn new things and master new things and being asked to try new things. If you can take a small break and read a book that makes you laugh and just give you a little bit of relief during the day, I think that's incredibly important. That's why I always try to put some humor into my books.

The goal of this book was to be able to look at a page from the book and see facts on that page so that everyone could agree on. You would say there were three robots on this page. Anybody who looked at that page could agree that there are three robots and then everyone could agree that that was a fact. Then, the book will ask simple questions like, "Well, which robot did you like the most?" Then, you get to have an opinion. I wanted the images in the book to be able to teach the idea between fact and opinion.