How To Survive Time Travel
Larry Hayes, illustrated by Katie Abey
Simon & Schuster

Ten year old Eliza Lemon (it’s her journal we’re reading) and her young brother Johnnie – he of the super brains and weak left leg – discover their parents have disappeared, leaving in their place a little old oak tree with three symbols on the trunk.

Johnnie informs big sis. that the car (also missing) is in fact a time machine. Now of course she knew that really didn’t she? The two quickly realise that they and they alone, (and especially without interference from the ‘pure evil’ Sadie Snickpick) must do something to rescue them; the problem being, what?

After some dangerous activity involving a tool they certainly shouldn’t have been wielding the two manage to fell the tree and inside there is a shoe bearing a message from their parents informing them they’re stuck in 5000BCE (or is it?), providing a grid reference, asking for help and saying everything they need to solve the riddle of the sphinx is in the shed. All they have to do now is build themselves a time machine and get away within two days or face the dire consequences of what the dreaded Sadie has already set in motion. Simple! Though maybe they’ll end up having to face them anyway.

The fight is on – in more ways than one … Can Eliza keep her head? And more important can they (including dog Myrt) tolerate horrendously itchy bites by rainforest insects, get the better of the weird, dastardly Boy-God, deadly snakes,

a rainbow hued sphinx and foil the next plot to destroy the planet. As for surviving time travel to ancient Egypt – who knows? Our journalist Eliza is, in her dad’s words, the “Girl Who Never Gives Up”, so maybe, just maybe …

Laugh out loud funny, this nail-biting foray into the past, with suitably quirky black and white illustrations by Katie Abey, will keep readers on the edge of their sofas as they follow the highs and lows of Eliza and Johnnie’s time travelling exploits. A cracker this!