A Quest in Time

Rating:
Summary: Sadly disappointed.
Review: Our whole family enjoys books in the "time travel" genre, therefore when I saw this title by two veteran kid lit pros, I didn't even hesitate pushing the purchase button.

What a disappointment! From the first sentence of the extremely contrived scenario to the wishy-washy ending it was poor, poor, poor! I started reading it loud, but quit half way through because both of my children, 8 & 10, said it was "too boring". (My 10 year old & myself both finished it independently, so we can both add that it didn't get any better further on.) And these are kids who will sit through nearly anything read out loud & express at least some degree of enjoyment.

OK, more details. The premise here is that the young heroine receives a trunk from her recently-deceased archaeologist uncle filled with "artifacts" from a number of different time period. Also the obligatory mysterious journal. As she reads the journal & picks up each item she is whirled through time, *very* briefly meets a token person from that era, receives the item from them somehow & is whirled back. We're talking very, VERY briefly here. Snippets! Then when she's back she gets a dull little history lecture via the journal. (Yawn.)

We are never engaged, and we never get a chance to get interested in the people she meets, or get into any sort of suspension of disbelief which is so vital to these types of stories.

To make sense of this hodge podge, one would already need to have some knowledge of the times & events referred to. And if one already has even the slightest historical knowledge, then the brief, questionably accurate "facts" presented here are not nearly enough info for even the most mildly inquiring young mind!

It looks like the book was perhaps meant to trigger the interests of children & perhaps encourage them to research the time periods mentioned on their own. It might be mrginally successful in this way, but there is no suggested further reading list & no source or bibliography information.

I will recommend some other books in this genre that ARE fun & interesting & well researched & interesting to kids.

The Usborne Time Travellers series (Viking Raiders, Knights & Castles, Rome & Romans, Pharoahs & Pyramids) is great fun; full page, highly detailed, full colour illustrations literally packed with captions & side notes. Lots of little funny episodes included; the children pore over these books for hours. The historical info is accurate & pulls no punches - for example, in the Viking book we do see people being run through & lying dead during a raid; one of the Vikings is wounded & later dies, giving an opportunity to cover Viking era medical treatment(!) & then, naturally, a full-blown Viking funeral. Good stuff!

A number of different authors have collaborated on these, but Stephen Cartwright is the main illustrator so a search for each individual title plus his name should bring them up.

The other books I recommend are the Good Times Travel Agency series by Linda Bailey, published by Kids Can Press. These are comic book style, with many amusing incidents concerning the reluctant time travellers (3 children), & scads of historical info presented in an amusing & appealing way. Again, these are good for hours of independent reading & it is amazing what the kids effortlessly absorb from these well done stories. I don't know the titles off hand, but the books we've read include Middle Ages, Ancient Greece, and Ancient China. There are a number of others.

Ok, hope this helps. Maybe I was a little harsh giving "Quest in Time" only one star, but in comparison to these other books that's all it deserves!