time travel

The Map to Everywhere

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by Carrie Ryan and John Parke Davis
First sentence: “Fin crouched behind a rack of bootleg flavors, trying hard to ignore the taste of rat fur and broccoli juice seeping from the grungy bottles.”
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Content: It’s kind of long, there’s some difficult made-up words, and it does take a bit of time to get into, so not really for a reluctant reader. Then again, there’s some great illustrations… Either way, it’s i the middle grade section (grades 3-5) of the bookstore.

Marrill has lived a life of adventure, following her parents around the world. Now, what was supposed to be a temporary stop in Arizona has become (mostly) permanent: her mother has cancer, and they need to stay close to doctors. But the prospect of school and a stable home doesn’t make Marrill happy.

Across the universe, Fin is the opposite: stuck in the Khaznot Quay, where he was dropped off as a baby by his mother (who then disappeared), Fin has become a master thief, mostly because he’s the guy who can’t be remembered. Literally: people look at him and as soon as they look away, they don’t remember him anymore. It’s very convenient when you tend to steal things.

But when Marrill’s and Fin’s paths cross — it has something to do with the Pirate Stream (a magical time/space continuum thing; you can sail a ship almost anywhere in the universe on it) — they end up teaming up to stop a rogue wizard from destroying the stream, and therefore the universe.

This is a perfectly fine fantasy adventure, once it got started. The main problem for me was that it took too long to get started. I almost put it down several times as I was waiting for the adventure to start, wading through the new world, and how everything connected. However, once the people and things were in place, I really did enjoy Marrill and Fin’s adventures.

I’m not sure if I’m invested in the series, but I think the kids will like it.

Obsidian Mirror

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by Catherine Fisher
First sentence: “The boy put on the mask outside the door.”
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Content: Nothing objectionable, but it’s slow to start and is a  bit confusing. Not for the reader who gives up easily. It’s in the YA (grades 6-8) section of the bookstore.

This has been on my shelves for a long time. Seriously. I had the ARC, but gave that up, and finally, again, decided that I really needed to read this one. And I was in the mood this past weekend to indulge myself.

I shouldn’t have put it off. (Or maybe I should have: I’ve got the second one waiting to be picked up at the library. Shhhh. I know I said I wasn’t going to. But it’s CATHERINE FISHER.)

There’s three parts to this story. One is Oberon Venn, a very wealthy explorer who has spent the last two years in a depression because he was he cause of the accident that killed his wife, Leah. He will do anything to get her back. Including time travel. He and his trusty slave — there’s more to that than meets the eye — Piers are hidden out at Venn’s estate, trying to do just that: travel through time through the Obsidian Mirror.

The second player in this drama is Jacob, the son of Venn’s best fried. Who is missing and presumed dead. Or at least that’s what Jake thinks. So he’s headed, along with his unsuspecting teacher, Wharton,  to Wintercombe Abbey to force answers from Venn. Little does he know the web he will be tangled in.

The final player is the most complicated one: Sarah is possibly an escapee from an insane asylum. Or perhaps she’s a traveler from the future, a future where the mirror has destroyed the world, in order to destroy the mirror and prevent Venn from bringing his wife back.

There’s so much going on in this one, it’s hard to know where to begin. Yes, it’s slow and incredibly confusing to start with. I kept thinking “HUH?” But, I know Fisher’s work, so I stuck it out, and was richly rewarded. It’s time travel mashed with a mystery mashed with faery stories (yes, the Fey show up, and play a role), and if you give it time, it will begin to play out — it’s the first of a trilogy — in some incredible ways.

I can’t wait to read the next one.

The Last Present

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by Wendy Mass
First sentence: “When you’ve drawn breath for nearly a hundred years, not much surprises you.”
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Others in the series: 11 Birthdays, Finally, 13 Gifts
Content: There some kissing (a first kiss) and a bit of fudging the truth, but other than that, nothing objectionable. Sits quite happily with the rest of the series in the middle grade (3-5th grade) section of the bookstore.

Amanda and Leo have gone without talking for a year. Again. This time, though, it wasn’t a fight that did it: Angelina — the mysterious, magical woman in the town of Willow Falls — asked them to. Because when Amanda and Leo don’t talk, they have the power travel through time.

This time, they’re tasked with going back in time to fix their friend’s sister’s birthday party. See, Angelina bestows a “benediction” of protection on all the children of Willow Falls, something that will keep them safe. But she didn’t make it in time to help Grace (that’s the friend’s sister), and every attempt she made in the intermittent 10 years didn’t work either. And she’s tasked Amanda and Leo with going back and making sure that Grace’s benediction happens. Three times.

It sounds simple, and in many ways it is: Amanda and Leo head back to a different year each day over the course of a week, and all they have to do is fix one little thing at each birthday party. But as they find out, it’s not as easy as it sounds. And then there’s the problem that all this might be more about Angelina than it is about Grace.

While it’s nothing earth-shattering or ground-breaking, it’s a very sweet little book. I liked how Mass brought in all the elements of the whole series, and though this is Amanda and Leo’s follow-up story (they were always my favorite, anyway), Rory and Tara do have parts to play. It’s very much one of those “on the cusp of adulthood” books: Amanda and Leo have their first kiss, and they are beginning to make decisions that will effect their future. But even with that, it’s a simple, sweet (I know: I keep saying that. There really is no better word.) story about moving on and making things right.

And a fitting end to this series.

The Wells Bequest

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by Polly Shulman
First sentence: “The Wednesday when the whole time-travel adventure began, I was fiddling with my game controller, trying to make the shoot button more sensitive.”
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Content: The main character is a bit obsessed with the girl (too much for my taste in a time-traveling, science fiction adventure book) and there’s a terrorist threatening to destroy NYC. It’s in the middle grade (3-5 grade) section of the bookstore, though I personally would hesitate before giving it to just any third grader, though I’m not sure I could pinpoint why.

Leo is the son of Russian immigrants who really only expect two things from him: excellence and to be scientifically minded. Leo — for better or for worse — is neither of those. At least not in the traditional sense. Leo is a Tinkerer. He loves taking things apart and putting them back together. He loves building new and better things. Which makes him perfect for the page program of the New York Circulating Material Repository. He gets there in a weird, round-about way, though: a time-traveling version of himself and an unknown girl (Jaya Rao, who was in the first book of this series The Grimm Legacy. Thankfully this one stands on its own, however.) stops in his room to tell him to read H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine.

I’d like to say that an adventure starts there, and there is a bit of an adventure that involves NikolaTesla, Mark Twain, and a crazed British page that has a raging crush on Jaya. I while I did enjoy reading this book, mostly I felt like it was a set-piece for Shulman to show off all the Really Cool Things that could come from reading science fiction books. There are many references to classic science fiction (which I got, but I wonder how an elementary school student would handle) and the inventions that come out of them are really neat. But I felt like that was the entire point of the plot. And I kind of wanted more action and less cool inventions.

(There’s also the side issue of Leo being Obsessed — though not in a crazy way — with kissing Jaya. I know he’s a hormonal pre-teen boy, but get on with it already. It’s a science fiction time travel book. I felt like it was a distraction.)

Even with my qualms, it was a fun story. And I’m curious about the first one as well.

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I’ve been asked to make sure y’all know this is my opinion only, and not that of the panel.)