Groundhog Day Type Time Travel

I’m in a club! I’ve never actually seen the other members, but I can tell they’re very cool. It’s the Marvelous Middle Grade Monday club! Everyone in the club is a book blogger who posts a middle grade book review on a Monday. This was the brainchild of Shannon Messenger. You can see a list of folks who are publishing a review on a particular Monday by going to her site. If you have enjoyed reading the middle grade book reviews on my blog, you would probably enjoy the others’, too.

11 Birthdays, Wendy Mass, (2009, 267 pages) wins the award for prettiest book jacket of time travel books I have reviewed to date. The author has written several books about different tween/teen characters who celebrate a birthday as part of the book’s story line. They include Finally (about turning 12) and 13 Gifts. I hate to go all girly here, but I have to say the covers of these books are cupcake gorgeous! Okay, enough about the gloss.

The plot of a character being locked in a repeating day is one that few authors of time travel stories use, notable exceptions consisting of The Power of Un, and 15 Minutes. I wish more authors would explore it. As in the movie, Groundhog Day, when the characters realize they are repeating a day sometimes they try to make it better.  In so doing they make us as readers reflect on how we could live more fully.

Amanda and Leo in 11 Birthdays were born on the same day. They became best friends and even had their birthday parties together each year, until their tenth birthday when Leo made some comments that changed everything. The friendship ended. Amanda doesn’t enjoy her 11th birthday party, the first one without Leo, very much. She goes to bed relieved to put it behind her. But when she wakes up it’s her birthday again!  She figures out Leo is also locked in a repeating day. They mend their friendship, and try to make the repeating 24 hours the best it can possibly be while they try to find their way out to the next day.

This was a really fun story with likeable characters.

Baseball Card Greats

I don’t know if reviewing two time travel books with a common theme in each post, rather than just one story adds any value to my blog. At least I amuse myself. When I found out there were two books about time travel and the baseball card of Honus Wagner, I had to make it a theme. After all, I have to come up with two themes a month. (Ideas, anyone?)

Honus and Me, Dan Gutman, (1997, 140 pages) is the first time travel novel I’ve read that incorporates actual photographs, in this case of legendary baseball player Honus Wagner. It was great to see what a main character in a story actually looked like. Gutman has a whole series of time travel books in which the time travel magic starts with a baseball card including, Babe and Me, Jackie and Me, Shoeless Joe and Me, Mickey and Me, Jackie and Me, Roberto and Me, and the latest, Ted and Me. If you know a reluctant reader who is a baseball fan, this series could be a great recommendation. The books have different characters so they can be enjoyed singly.

In Honus and Me, twelve-year-old Joe Stoshack takes a job cleaning out his neighbor’s attic to earn a few bucks. His neighbor, old lady Amanda Young, tells him to put all the boxes on the curb for the trash collector. As Joe is moving a stack of papers, a Honus Wagner baseball card flutters to the ground. Joe can hardly believe his eyes. He knows it’s the most valuable baseball card in the world, worth thousands of dollars. So much dough could change the life of his family forever. But it really belongs to Miss Young. Would giving it to her be the right thing to do? He decides to pocket the card and think about the decision for awhile.

In the coming days as he is mulling over his decision, Honus Wagner show up in the flesh in Joe’s time. He’s a very down-to-earth, funny guy. Then, Joe gets to go back to Honus’ time. Only he doesn’t look like Joe anymore because he has woken up in a man’s body, looking like Honus’ brother, Albert “Butts” Wagner who was also an actual ball player. It’s the day of the 1909 World Series. After Honus hurts his hand during the game he secretly swaps uniforms with Joe/Butts and Joe (you have to suspend disbelief a little here) gets to stand in for Honus and step up to bat!

I’m not a baseball fan, but I found this book to be a fun, quick read. I did skim over some of the baseball parts. The photos added a great dimension to the tale. Honus was a likeable guy who shared some good life lessons with Joe. I liked the aspect of the plot dealing with Joe’s moral dilemma about what he should do with the card.

Dan Gutman is an incredibly prolific and successful author. Hard to believe it wasn’t always so. From his website, here are some rejection letters he received when he first tried to get Honus and Me published. They make for fascinating reading, and are inspiring to all of us would-be authors! He also has an awesome facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dan-Gutman/60020139122?ref=ts.

Time Traveling with a Great-Uncle

Why did no one ever recommend to me the fantastic novel, The Book of Story Beginnings, Kristin Kladstrup, (2006, 360 pages) a book which is like Harold and the Purple Crayon for older people? Remember Harold and the Purple Crayon? In this 1955 children’s classic, whatever Harold drew came to life. In The Book of Story Beginnings it is not drawings that come to life, but rather whatever story beginning someone writes in a magic notebook.

In The Book of Story Beginnings, Lucy’s dad has lost his job as a professor in NYC. Her family has recently inherited an old house in Iowa that has been in the family for years. It was left to them by her dad’s Aunt Lavonne who recently passed away. They need to move there so they can live rent/mortgage-free. Lucy at first doesn’t want to go. However, her dad reads her a letter that does make her intrigued. The letter is one that Lavonne sent to Lucy’s dad right before she died. In it she shares that she had a dream in which she is told “Lucy can explain” what happened to her long-lost brother. Lucy had long enjoyed hearing stories about her Great-uncle Oscar, who at age 14 in 1914, mysteriously vanished from the very house to which they are moving. Aunt Lavonne wrote that perhaps if Lucy looks at the journals Oscar wrote in,  left behind when he vanished, perhaps her “fresh eyes” can find some clue as to why he disappeared.

Lucy’s family moves to Iowa, and Lucy immediately reads Oscar’s journals. She also finds and reads a notebook much older than Oscar’s other composition books which is labelled, The Book of Story Beginnings. Handwritten in it are just four paragraphs which she realizes are the opening paragraphs of four different stories. Without giving it much thought, Lucy adds one of her own story beginnings.

Great-aunt Lavonne had believed in magic and studied alchemy in the attic of the house.  Settled into the house, Lucy’s dad enjoys reading her old papers on the subject and experimenting with the chemicals she left behind. He makes a magic changing potion and turns himself into a bird, probably planning to be a bird for just a few moments. But the household cat frightens him and he flies out the window. When the cat licks up some of the potion, it changes into human Oscar, still age fourteen. After Oscar has gotten over his shock of finding himself in the future, and has explained to Lucy how he happened to become a cat, Lucy enlists his help to find her dad. Thus she and Oscar embark on an magical journey that takes them far from the cornfields of Iowa.

As a reader, you slowly realize that the characters and particulars of the place they travel to match a story beginning Oscar wrote in the book so many years ago. Then, one story intersects with another story beginning, and even the story beginning Lucy wrote… As a reader, to see this unfold is delightful. If it sounds a little complicated, it is. This is a truly unique plot. I was never a huge fan of fairy tales but there is a fairy tale aspect to this story that so resonated with me that it makes me want to seek out more fairy tales.

Kladstrup is a powerful writer. At one point Lucy gets turned into a pigeon. Kladstrup’s description of what it feels like to be turned into a pigeon is the most vivid and creepy I’ve ever encountered. Okay, so I’ve never before read about being turned into a pigeon, but still.

She heard a soft cooing noise that was soothing to her nerves.  She bobbed about and listened to it until she realized that it was coming from her own throat. Feeling that there was something not quite right about that, she sat down like a stone to think. In fact, the word think popped into her head, shocking her with its power. I can think! These are words! said her thoughts, and she listened as hard as she could for more words to come because she knew that words were somehow very important.

Fighting back the desire to make the soothing noise in her throat, she studied a dusting of sand and gravel on the stony surface in front of her. Then her beak came down and snapped up a speck of gravel. She swallowed it, and it was almost a minute before more words came into her mind. When they did, they hit her like a slap. I don’t eat gravel! she thought. For one second, she thought she would be sick.

Although the plot of The Book of Story Beginnings is not a common one, the vocabulary and sentence structure are relatively simple. I thought this lent the writing a feeling of purity. Because the action and emotion in this story are easy to understand I think this book could be enjoyed by a broad age range of readers.

Time Travel Gardens

Gardens take us out of our everyday lives. When you turn your attention to a garden, you leave the rest of the world behind. How easy to imagine then, that a garden could be magical. The plots of the two stories featuring magic gardens reviewed in today’s post have a few points in common. In both, the main character is staying in a unfamiliar house and discovers a time travel “portal” in the garden behind the house. Both Tom (Midnight Garden) and Ashley (Doll in the Garden) travel back to the early 1900′s although they are not clear what period they’ve found themselves in for some time. In both books the time travel is episodic in that Tom and Ashley slip back and forth between their present and the past. They don’t stay more than a day in the past. Back in time, they both encounter a lonely girl in need of a friend.

Tom’s Midnight Garden, Philippa Pearce, (1958, 229 pages) has a captivating opening sentence:

If, standing alone on the back doorstep, Tom allowed himself to weep tears, they were tears of anger.

I found the rest of the story engaging, too. This book is sometimes referred to as a time travel classic, and in some ways it does stand the test of time. In this story, Tom has to go to his aunt and uncle’s home in another town for a couple weeks so he doesn’t catch measles from his brother. At first, he is bored as there aren’t any children around to play with. But then one night he discovers if he goes outside into what in present day is a tiny fenced-in backyard, he can travel back in time.

Tom finds himself in a time before the land was subdivided into many family plots. In place of all the houses and apartments of modern life, is a huge garden. (The word “garden” was a little confusing to me because as described in the book it sounds more like a multi-acre country estate which includes a pond, summer-house, greenhouse, heating-house, orchards, etc…)  He meets a girl named Hattie in the garden. Hattie lives in the large house which owns the property. Together the pair enjoy the simple pleasures of the garden. Because they are both lonely, they really appreciate the other’s company.

Tom just has to go back in his house to be back in his own time again. And although the magic only happens at night, it is always daytime in the garden. Although Tom’s days are dull, he looks forward to evening, for every night he plays with Hattie. Yet, even if Tom plays for hours outside, when he steps back inside it is as if no time has passed. He can tuck himself back into bed and get a good night’s sleep. Interestingly, although Tom is visiting the garden over a period of just a couple months, for Hattie about ten years passes. This adds to the bittersweet feeling of the book as Tom’s playmate outgrows him somewhat.

I really enjoyed the book. It is very “atmospheric” in the way of one of my top ten time travel books, Charlotte Sometimes. Yet, I find myself in the awkward position of stating I believe other adult readers who read middle grade novels for fun would probably enjoy it, but I think many middle grade readers would not. The negatives of the book include the facts that it is longish, not very suspenseful, and filled with references to unfamiliar British landmarks (is it just me that has this anti-British prejudice?) and British customs, or perhaps just old-fashioned customs. I imagine a skilled and motivated young reader could get past these difficulties, but an average reader perhaps not.

Tom’s Midnight Garden was dramatized by the BBC, made into a movie, and staged as a play. See also Charlotte’s lovely review which highlights several good points of the book, and even includes a photo of how she imagines the gardens to look!

Toys Come to Life

What child hasn’t imagined the wonderful guardian he could be to a tiny being, such as a grasshopper or toad borrowed from the yard? Young Omri in the Indian in the Cupboard, Lynne Reid Banks, (1980, 184 pages) gets that chance, in this case with a tiny toy Indian that comes to life. However, the creature is a real person, and the responsibility turns out to be heavier than expected.

For his birthday, Omri is given a small plastic figure of an Indian that he doesn’t think is anything special at first. He also receives an old cupboard and a key that can lock it. He discovers that whatever toy figure he puts in the cabinet comes to life while remaining the same size, then can be made inert again by being locked in the cabinet a second time. He brings to life an Indian, named Little Bear. He later animates a cowboy called Boone, and briefly, a medic.

The author could have penned this book without a time travel angle, and as the plot is written time travel does not loom as large as in most time travel tales. In the story, the Indian, cowboy and medic were real people that find themselves suddenly in Omri’s time without knowing how they got there. The trio share with Omri  just a few details of their earlier lives. Little Bear reports he is Iroquois and fought with the English against the French and Algonquin Indians. This struggle was part of an ongoing battle for land in the westward expansion days of the US. This indicates Little Bear was  from the 1700′s. The cowboy was from 1889. The medic doctored soldiers during WW I. We don’t get to learn a lot about the past from this book, although the story describes Omri as being newly interested in history and eagerly reading a book about Iroquois life from the library.

This story is close to perfect for so many reasons. I found the description of the coming to life of the small figures and their exploration of Omri’s bedroom and backyard almost unbearably vivid. Because of the details the author includes, I could see it right before me. Omri tries to provide Little Bear and the cowboy with everything they need. He brings a spoonful of beans and eggs to Little Bear and Boone which is a huge bowlful of food to them. When in the backyard Little Bear rides a tiny horse that Omri brought to life, we can see that the pebbles are like boulders to Little Bear, and the weeds like trees.

This is such a suspenseful book. The vulnerability of Little Bear and the cowboy are obvious because of their size. Reading the story, you hold your breath hoping that rough kids or animals don’t get at them. Not only are the pair in danger because of their small size, when they first meet they are prone to fighting each other. Omri is a good protector though, and even finds a way to help Boone and Little Bear, initially enemies, make friends.

Omri’s character is likeable. He is at first bursting with excitement and can hardly keep from bragging to his friends about the magic he can make in his bedroom. He eventually shares his secret with his best friend Patrick whom he entrusts with Little Bear and the cowboy for a time. But Patrick is not a good guardian and puts the pair in great danger. Omri realizes that for the tiny beings’ safety they have to be protected from Patrick and kept secret from everyone else. He summons the will to do that. Omri respects Little Bear and the cowboy and tries to protect their dignity. He resists the temptation to exploit his great power as a giant over them.

The courage the miniature people display as they try to figure out the new world they have found themselves in is touching. Little Bear and Boone have distinct voices and are very funny. Although tiny, their personalities loom large.

Maybe I especially loved this story because some of my favorite playthings as a kid were small plastic figures.The coming to life of the plastic Indian might seem especially striking to people over a certain age who can picture the type of toy described. I imagine most kids don’t play with toy Indians anymore. Other than a few stowaways in an old Lincoln Logs set leftover from my husband’s childhood, my kids have never seen plastic Indians, and certainly have never played with them. Members of the American Indian Library Association would probably say it is a good thing children don’t play with toy Indians anymore. After all, we don’t play with tiny Italians, right?

The American Indian Library Association did not love this book.  In one of their publications, “I” is not for Indian” they wrote,

 The Indian in the Cupboard and its sequels are much-loved books by librarians and their patrons. But for Indian people, these are some of the worst perpetrators of the most base stereotypes. The miniature toy Indian (Indians portrayed as objects or things) is described as an Iroquois warrior, but is dressed as a movie western version of a generic plains Indian “chief”, complete with eagle feather headdress. The warrior is described in the most stereotypical terms and speaks in subhuman grunts and partial sentences. He is manipulated by a more powerful white child, fostering the image of the simple and naive Indian whose contact with the white man can only benefit him and his people.

AILA has a valid point and sadly, this stereotyping mars an otherwise perfect book. At the end of “I is not for Indian,” they note 13 thought-provoking “What to look for”questions to ask about a book to see if it might be demeaning to Indians. Despite the stereotyping in The Indian in the Cupboard, I think kids should read it because of all its merits. It would be best if adults could also talk with them about the true diversity of American Indian culture.

George Woods in his book review titled Books: Best for Children of 1981 called The Indian in the Cupboard “the best novel of the year.” He also noted that although set in Great Britain it has, “few intrusive Briticisms”, a detail which always brings a smile to my face. I love that Common Sense Media said of the movie based on the book, “Teens may enjoy it but feign indifference.” I am glad I am way past adolescence so I can gush unabashedly about this book.

Welcome to My Century

I can’t imagine anyone not enjoying Archer’s Quest, Linda Sue Park (2006, 167 pages). At the opening of the story Kevin is doing his homework at his desk in his room. His boredom comes to a sudden end when someone shoots his baseball cap off his head with an arrow, pinning it to the wall!  His surprise visitor turns out to be Koh Chu-mong, ancient ruler of Korea, born in 55 B.C. Chu-mong was known for his amazing talent with a bow and arrow, as well as his skill as ruler.

Chu-mong feels a great responsibility to his people and wants to return to his own time. He doesn’t have a clue how to make that happen. Kevin is of Korean descent and uses the small knowledge he has about Korean history to try to find Chu-mong a way home. I liked how Kevin used his brain, drawing on resources in his college town such as the zoo and museum that he thought might be helpful. It is the last day of the year of the Tiger when Chu-mong finds himself in Kevin’s room in New York State. Chu-mong has to get back home before the year changes. All the action of this story takes place during only one day as Kevin tries different ideas to try to get Chu-mong back home.

Chu-mong’s reaction to objects of our time were LOL funny. I loved the scene where Kevin tries to call his grandmother (Ah-jee) on the phone but Chu-mong thinks Kevin is talking to him.

“Ah-jee, hold on for just one second, okay?”

“Sure thing, Kevin.”

“Hold on to what?” Archie said. Kevin put his hand over the mouthpiece.  “Archer. I. Am. Not. Talking.To. You.” He spoke slowly, trying to force himself to be patient.  “I’m talking to my grandparents.”

“Your grandparents?” Archie leapt to his feet and looked around the room.

“No, no!” Kevin said.  Sheesh, the things he had to explain. “They don’t live here. I’m talking to them through-through this.”

Kevin also has to explain cars, the Internet, and glass.

Chu-mong is a unique character I will remember. He has great dignity, but also a sense of humor. He never “runs his mouth” but rather keeps in mind what is important and chooses his words carefully. He is a natural teacher, and teaches Kevin something about the physical as well as mental discipline of archery.

I liked the parts about archery. Although I hated archery in high school P.E., for some strange reason I have lately believed I would now love archery and have been wanting to give it another shot.

Archer’s Quest has my favorite kind of plot– one where the action is as much if not more about what is happening between the main characters, as in the world around them. I love this kind of writing– thoughtful, humorous without going for obvious jokes, with no wasted words. I can understand why this author won a Newberry award for another book (A Single Shard.)

Youtube interview with author about writing:

Short-term Time Travel

Have you ever said the wrong thing to someone, (as in “open mouth, insert foot”), instantly realized the brilliant thing you should have said, and thought, if only I could go back a few minutes in time … The owners of the time travel devices reviewed in the books in today’s post have that power. But it turns out to be a little more complicated than you might imagine.

In many time travel books characters journey to interesting faraway places. For a change of pace, in my last post I reviewed a couple of books in which the characters went back in time without ever leaving their house. In The Magic Half Miri goes back 73 years, and in Voices After Midnight Chad goes back 100 years. The time travel books reviewed in today’s post are the first I’ve found in which the characters not only stay in their neighborhood/town, they also remain in the week they are currently experiencing.

The Power of Un, Nancy Etchemendy, (2000, 148 pages) is funny but parts of the plot have a serious tone. When the book starts, middle schooler Gib has just had a Friday where everything went wrong. The clincher is, he was supposed to go to a carnival that night with his best friend Ash, but now he has to bring his little sister Roxy with them, which means he and his buddy won’t be able to ride any of the scary rides. It’s not fair.

Before dinner, he goes for a walk in some nearby woods. So angrily is he kicking along a rock, he almost doesn’t see an old man standing there. The man hands Gib an object that could fit into a shoebox which he calls an Unner. Although the old man says he doesn’t have time to explain much, he does comment,

What if you had a machine that gave you the power to undo any mistake?  Not just in a game, but anytime, anywhere, any mistake at all?

The device has an H button, M button, and a S button. Gib and his best friend Ash figure out this allows them to customize how many hours, minutes and even seconds they can go back in time. Only the person who pushes the buttons is aware of the time repeating. At the fair, Gib decides to just once ride the Devil’s Elevator with Ash. In those three minutes Roxy gets into big trouble. The old man had told him to only use the unner only when he needed to. Roxy getting hurt seems like a clear-cut case. However, a time re-do turns out to not be simple. Using it sets other strings of events in motion. How will Gib change only the things that he is meant to change, and not other stuff?

This was a book that managed to be funny and suspenseful. The characters were believable.  The Power of Un has a much more thought-provoking premise than the average time travel book. You could have a good discussion about what mistakes from your own life you would undo, if you had the power. I appreciated the fact that in The Power of Un and the below-reviewed 15 Minutes the boys avoid the obvious: using their newly found magic to win a lottery. In both books they decide it can be more important to help others rather than themselves.

In 15 minutes, Steve Young,(2006, 172 pages), Casey finds an old watch in the attic that his grandfather made. Casey can’t choose how far back in time to go; the watch always takes him back 15 minutes. Still, the possibilities he finds for improving his seventh-grade life with the Go-back are endless. He realizes he can eat a plateful or food, then start over without being full. After blowing a conversation the first time with the prettiest girls at school, he finds the perfect comments to impress them. As in The Power of Un, only the person pushing the button on the device is aware of time repeating.

Casey is on the football team, although most of the time he just serves as the water boy. He doesn’t get to play often because he is terrible at the sport. A few days after finding the Go-back however, Coach does put him in a practice game. At first, Casey trips over his own feet and bellyflops, in his usual style. But he realizes he is wearing the Go-back. He saw where the football was just thrown. Casey pushes the magic button,and goes back in time fifteen minutes. This time he is in just the right place at the right time to intercept the ball. Everyone is amazed at his transformation to star football player.

This book is hilarious, the humor  similar to that in the Diary of Wimpy Kid series. As in that series the main character is a bit of an underdog. There are 54 chapters, but some chapters are only one page. Chapter 33 is titled, Your Ideas Here:

This is your chapter. Get a separate piece of paper and write down as many things as you can about what you would do if you had a Go-back. I’ll wait.

One chapter I loved is written from the point of view of the school bully who briefly steals the watch. This book is a fun read, quick enough to read in one sitting.

Whoa–I think I just gained a little insight into what short-term time travel feels like! In the middle of writing the above paragraph, I hit a random computer key and three fourths of my post disappeared. I’ll admit I cried a little. I’ll admit I said some words that I will not print here. I needed the words back because I am lazy and did not want to rewrite the post. I hit a bunch of other keys–nothing worked. Then, I found the time- stamped “revisions” section of my WordPress worksheet. And there were all my earlier drafts of the post which I had saved. I clicked “restore” on the version from ten minutes prior. Voila! It was back. It wasn’t a short-term time machine, but it was exciting, all the same.

Question: Would you go back in time and undo a mistake you made if you could?

Oh, Great–My New House is Haunted

The Magic Half, Annie Barrows, (2008, 211 pages) strikes me as a perfect book for a third-grade girl. It was no shock that I loved it because the Ivy and Bean book series by the same author is about the finest I’ve found for my second-grade daughter.

Although Miri in The Magic Half has five kids in her family, she is often lonely. That’s because the others are all paired up. She has a set of older twin brothers, and a set of younger twin sisters. The four are closest with their twin. The family has recently moved into a big old house in the country. A few days after her family moves into the house, Miri finds something odd in her new attic bedroom. It’s the lens of an old pair of eyeglasses, taped to the baseboard. She picks it up, looks through it, and is transported back to 1935.

There is another family living in the house in 1935. A girl Miri’s age named Molly has the attic room. Molly takes some convincing to make her believe Miri is not a fairy! Molly has no mother and her dad seems to have abandoned her. The mother of the house is Molly’s aunt. The whole family–Aunt Florence, cousin Sissy, but especially her older cousin Horst are cruel to Molly. This boy was so mean, so nasty, so awful thorough and through, my hands were practically in fists just reading about him. Miri learns she can return to her own time by looking through one of the lenses of her own glasses which happened to break a couple days earlier. But she can’t relax in her own time. Not until she does all she can to save Molly from Horst.

The time travel device of the eyeglasses was original. I liked how Miri was surprised twice by the time travel magic: first when she figured out she could go back in time with the old lenses, then when she realized she could return to her time with her modern glasses.

The main characters were likeable. Imagine going back in time in your own bedroom and meeting someone with whom you could be friends!  Horst was a despicable villain I loved to hate. The plot was suspense-filled as Miri worked desperately to get back to Molly before Horst did something terrible to her.

There is an innocence to the story that I think could strike just the right chord in a girl of a certain age, but might not appeal to older reader. Here is an excerpt, from Miri’s point of view:

After all those years of wishing for magic, it had finally happened.  To me, she thought to herself. It happened to me. An earthquake of joy shook her. “Oh boy,” she whispered. Magic is real, her mind sang, magic is real–and it happened to me. “My heart is jumping all over the place,” she said to Molly.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uocBH7ENS8c&feature=related

Chad’s family in Voices after Midnight, Richard Peck, (1989, 181 pages) do not actually move to a new house, but rather are staying for two weeks  in New York City in an old house they’ve never seen before. Their dad needs to be in NYC for business and the parents decided the whole family would go along.

Chad and his younger eight-year old brother Luke start hearing voices in their house, only at night. Then they get glimpses of a New York City of a long time ago. They stroll around Central Park and for a few minutes see a contingent of marching soldiers, wearing old-fashioned uniforms and carrying muskets. They catch sight of a building under construction which was actually completed long ago. This bits and pieces method of time travel did not work for me. I had questions. Namely, why was no one else seeing these old buildings and people from the past? It was not always even clear to me if the brothers were momentarily going back in time, or if people from the past were breaking through to present time.

Chad was a believable character. I liked reading about the way he looked out for his younger brother. But Luke was described as a mystical genius who didn’t care about normal eight-year old stuff. He didn’t seem real to me. And the way their  sixteen-year old sister was depicted as a boy-crazy, fashion-crazy, airhead,  much like a character from a second-rate sitcom really turned me off the book.

The author referred to many pop culture items in Voices After Midnight that were big when the book was written. I understand this decision. Kids reading it in 1989 probably enjoyed seeing brand names of things they liked mentioned, and it probably helped draw them into the story. But it doesn’t hold up. I’m old, and even I can’t remember what “Beastie Boy-type shoes” or “an Atari ST” looked like. For readers of today, those references just pull a reader out of the story. Contrast this with Time Cat, by Lloyd Alexander, reviewed in another post. When I read Time Cat recently I assumed it had been written a couple years earlier, and was shocked when I read the copyright date of  1963. There was nothing that dated that book.

In my opinion, the plot of this book fell flat on its face. In most time travel stories, some people of the past have an urgent problem with which the main characters feel they need to help. In this book, the individuals needing help were a brother and sister that lived in the house in 1888. However, their problem was revealed only at the end of the story, and seemed kind of random. There were clues about the dilemma, but it wasn’t like the whole story led up to it. Richard Peck has written a book a year for thirty-nine years! Interestingly, this famous  Newberry-award-winning author actually says in this interview, “I don’t know how to plot”.

Author interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv_aPsuv28g

Overall, Voices After Midnight didn’t hang together for me. Yet one book blogger told me this was her favorite time travel book. What am I missing, Joanne?! It’s possible I read it too fast. If you’re looking for a book specifically about New York City time travel you might enjoy the references.

Next Post:  Time Travel, Just a Couple Days Back

The Power of Un, Nancy Etchemendy, and

15 Minutes, Steve Young

Way, Way Back

I really, really wish I could get in a time machine and travel back to observe some Clovis people of Texas like the ones written about in 11,000 Years Lost by Peni R. Griffin, (2004, 307 pages.) Because the past they lived in was so distant, there is so little we know about them. I have often dreamed of being able to hear what early human’s language sounded like. After reading this richly imagined book, I have another question:  what did their songs sound like?

The story is about  eleven-year old Esther, who becomes fascinated with an archeological dig that is going on in her hometown. She is allowed to help out at the site, bringing drinks, and doing small jobs for the workers. The kind leader of the dig, Dr. Durham, explains as much as she can to Esther about the artifacts they are finding, and what is known about Clovis society.

One day Esther attempts to help out Dr. Durham by trying to find the remains of a Clovis campfire. Esther wanders in the woods, imagining this past society she has heard so much about, and suddenly she is seeing the land differently. There are two translucent layers– the familiar one, and superimposed upon it an unfamiliar one with different trees. Esther walks through a couple pine trees that weren’t there a moment ago, and then the familiar world disappears completely, and she is way, way back in time, 11,000 years. It’s a magical moment.

I love this image of a portal to time travel: two layers that gradually resolve into one. This is one of the best treatments of the transition from the present to journeying back in time that I have read in a time travel story. When I was about eleven years old my family took some double exposures with our Kodak Instamatic camera. These accidents turned out to be pure serendipity–two images coming together in a wholly unexpected way. That’s sort of how I picture these shimmering layers Griffin writes about.

Esther has to survive in the tribe of about twenty people she meets there until she can find her way back home. Like the other book reviewed in this blog by Peni R. Griffin, Switching Well, this book is rich in period details. I want to give a shout-out here to Ms. Griffin for taking the time to do the research that makes this kind of detail possible. Thank you for your hours upon hours of work.

Ms. Griffin writes in her Author’s Note at the end of this book:

What am I good at? What am I good for? Who do I love? Who loves me? How should I behave? These are the questions that all people have to answer for themselves, in every age, under every circumstance.

She does a great job of answering them for the characters in this story. Ms. Griffin’s tale has rich character development and is full of emotion–my kind of story. The book was about how the people survived, mostly focused on their quest for food, but also on the emotional relationships between the characters. It was a long book, the psychological stuff was kind of complex, and while I think older readers will love it, I think it might actually go over the head of younger middle grade readers. But I now count it among my top ten all time favorite time travel stories.

Elevator Going Up!

The two books reviewed in this post have a couple things in common. The main character in both is a girl, and both travel through time via an elevator. I think an elevator as a time travel vehicle is a great idea. Elevators always make me a little nervous. When you’re riding on a car, train or bike you can see where you’re going. Not so in an elevator. While you’re in an elevator anything could happen in the outside world and you wouldn’t know it. Maybe even time travel magic?

Main characters Susan and Jenni both travel in time, but not far in space. Characters in many time travel stories travel to exotic locales which can make for an exciting story. But it’s fun to imagine time traveling right in your own neighborhood. Wouldn’t you love to see what happened on the very spot where your house is located? One big difference between the two books is Susan travels to the past, while Jenni travels to the future.

In Time at the Top, Edward Ormondroyd, (1963, 147 pages), Susan returns home in 1960 after a particularly lousy day at school, and decides to go to the top (7th)  floor of her apartment building to look out the window as she is in the habit of doing, perhaps to clear her thoughts. Only this time, when she steps out of the elevator: zoiks! The carpet is different, the furniture is different, and the view out the window is completely different. She’s gone back to 1881, and she’s in the house that is where her apartment building stands in the present.

Two kids about her age,Victoria and Robert, live in the house with their mother. Their father died two years earlier. Susan can relate, as her mom died two years before. Victoria and Robert have a big problem: a creepy man is on the verge of marrying their mom. Susan knows her dad is probably worried sick not knowing where (or when) she is, but she feels she must stay and help Victoria and Robert.

I liked Susan’s clever, no-nonsense personality. I enjoyed how the three kids figured out some puzzling challenges together. My favorite part was when they were digging in the ground trying to find some buried treasure for some much needed cash flow. I would love to dig in the ground for valuable coins–hand me a shovel and I’m good to go. But Susan is 100% in love with the 19th century, which didn’t seem believable to me. Come on, you would at least miss TV, wouldn’t you? And Pop-tarts? I won’t give away the ending, but I will say that it also struck me as not quite believable, either.

There was a movie version of this made in 1999. How cool is it that the movie was made 36 years after the book was written! Fellow novelists, never give up hope that your story can make it to the big screen! Usually I feel loyal to a book I have enjoyed and don’t like it when they change the story for a film. So, I hope they didn’t change Time at the Top  too much, because the story is a solidly fun time travel tale.

In A Year Without Autumn, Liz Kessler, (2011, 294 pages), Jenni’s  stay at the condo her family rents the last week of summer vacation every year starts out ordinary. Her best friend Autumn’s family always vacations there the same week. But when Jenni knocks on the door of the condo where Autumn’s family always stays an old woman is there instead. Jenni is confused but decides Autumn must be in a different unit this year. Later, Jenni does find Autumn but it is Autumn a year in the future and she is shockingly changed. When Jenni returns to her unit, her mother is no longer pregnant. Instead, Jenni now has a baby sister who needs her diaper changed. The baby is sweet, but her previously happy family now has problems. Jenni figures out the elevator has taken her a year into the future!

Jenni goes back and forth between the present and the future a few times.  She realizes she will need to alter something in the present if she does not want the awful future she has glimpsed to come true. I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see if she could pull it off. As a time travel plot, the way Jenni goes back and forth between the present and the future was unique and full of suspense.

Jenni meets someone else who time traveled in the elevator years ago.  That person’s story makes for a nice subplot. A small complaint I had with the book was there was too much talk about how much Jenni liked Autumn.  Enough already! We get that she’s your best friend. Also, it takes Jenni a little long to figure everything out. I feel the book would have been stronger if it was a bit shorter. But overall, it’s a very creative time travel story, and I like how important family and friendship are to the main characters.

Here’s what the author has to say about the book:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vykssmI34EU

Next Post: Time Travel Way, Way Back:

11,000 Years Lost, by Penni R. Griffin, and

Dinosaur Habitat, by Helen Griffith