Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Going, Going, Gone (In Due Time #1) by Nicolas O. Time -OPTIONAL

Time, Nicolas O.  Going, Going, Gone (In Due Time #1) 145 pgs. Simon Spotlight, 2016. $17.99  Content: Language: G (0 swears); Mature Content: G Violence: G
Three students from the Sands Middle School get a chance to change history in this time travel story. Matt, Grace, and Luis are given this chance by their librarian, who has a magical book called The Book of Memories. For their first adventure, Matt chooses to go back and help his grandfather, who missed his chance at Major League baseball by hurting his ankle at a party. For this, the students must travel back to the 1950s. Changing history is tricky and the students must think hard if they are to change things for the better.
The time traveling book and librarian with all the tools (money, clothes, etc) for it, was a bit odd and awkward. This first book is pretty baseball heavy which may turn away those who don’t care for sports, thought the other books in the series appear to be on a wide variety of topics. I didn’t really feel like the children had distinct personalities (especially Grace, who apparently keeps acting out of character, but we haven’t gotten to know her character yet!). I was a bit weirded out about the students trying to intervene in the grandfathers romantic life, blech. One nice surprise (spoiler alert) is that the students were actually allowed to change history! I thought for sure they would realize they could be making a mistake and backpedal or have their librarian intervene, so that was pretty awesome.

EL –OPTIONAL Reviewer: Stephanie Elementary School Librarian & Author.

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