Once Was a Time

January 25, 2016
Ten-year-old Charlotte “Lottie” Bromley lives near war-torn London in 1940, which means food rationing, blackouts, and seeing little of her preoccupied father, a renowned scientist who is determined to discover the existence of time travel. Lottie finds enjoyment with her best friend Kitty, but when Lottie’s father goes missing, Lottie and Kitty are thrust into a dangerous situation that finds Lottie journeying to 2013 Wisconsin, where she discovers that she will never see her best friend—or anyone else she loves—again. Like many time-travel stories, Lottie’s adjustment to an unfamiliar era provides opportunities for lighthearted moments, such as using the Internet for the first time or eating at a diner with a 12-page menu. Lottie’s fortitude and resolve make her an admirable and sympathetic protagonist, but the real heart of this story lies in her friendship with Kitty. It’s a relationship that haunts Lottie (and will haunt readers, as well) until Sales (Tonight the Streets Are Ours) brings Lottie’s journey to an unexpected but satisfying end. Ages 10–up. Agent: Stephen Barbara, Inkwell Management.

February 1, 2016
The friendship of two 10-year-old English girls is tested when one travels through a portal to the future. In 1940, food rationing and fear of bombs are the backdrop for best friends Lottie and Kitty, who care more about anagrams and playing make-believe than the war. Lottie's scientist father researches time travel, work that's governed by the Official Secrets Act and coveted by the Nazis. The girls are kidnapped and taken to a cellar where Germans are trying to coerce Lottie's father into revealing his research. Lottie sees a shimmering portal and leaps through just as shots are fired, landing in a small Wisconsin town in 2013. She's befriended by a helpful librarian and a boy her own age named Jake. The passage of three years confirms her father's hypothesis that there is no returning to her own time. Lottie adjusts to a new school and life with a foster family, when she finds a postcard from Kitty addressed to her and stuck in a library book, raising her hopes that her friend is still somewhere to be found. Lottie's first-person account has a lighthearted tone, with lots of dialogue and details contrasting childhood in wartime England with modern-day America. Her transition to her new life is awkward but realistic, and the focus of this charming novel is always on friendship and loyalty. Rewarding and uplifting. (Fantasy. 9-13)

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March 1, 2016

Gr 4-6-"Most people don't believe in time travel," begins this work of fantasy/sci-fi set in 1940s wartime London. Ten-year-old Lottie and her best friend, the anagram-obsessed Kitty, certainly do. Lottie's dad is engaged in top-secret scientific research that may help win the war. Sales's story takes an abrupt detour as Lottie travels to suburban Wisconsin in the year 2013, without any clothes, without any clues, and, worst of all, without Kitty. With the help of a friendly librarian, some clueless but kind foster parents, and a geeky outcast artist, Lottie finds a new life, but she can't forget her dearest friend. She's determined to find her again, though time and space themselves stand in the way. Packed with literary allusions, meditations on friendship, and historical/geographical tidbits, this book is a bit of an unwieldy read, and its never-ending stream of coincidence, luck, and nice people can get a little wearing (has any Child Protective Services interview ever gone so well with so little paperwork?). The science is fluff, but the book shines in its portrayal of friendship, both the intense bond between Lottie and Kitty and the blossoming trust between Lottie and her new friend, Jake. VERDICT This genre mash-up will appeal to fans of Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me (Random, 2009) and Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time.-Katya Schapiro, Brooklyn Public Library

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2016
In World War II England, Lottie and Kitty are best friends. But when they are kidnapped by (putative) Nazis who threaten to shoot them if Lottie's scientist father doesn't give up the secrets of time travel, Lottie sees a chance to escape through a fortuitously occurring time portal and takes itleaving Kitty behind. Randomly arriving in 2013 Sutton, Wisconsin, Lottie soon settles in with a new foster family, but her guilt drives her to the library in search of answers to what happened to her friend. Then one day, three years later, a thunderboltLottie improbably finds a postcard from Kitty tucked into a copy of A Little Princess, their favorite book from childhood. Sales handles time travel lightly, establishing it as a quasi-natural phenomenon, which allows her to play with perspectives on time and aging without getting bogged down in questions of why and how. Lottie's fish-out-of-water disembarkation in the twenty-first century is an amusing diversion; more involving is a school-story subplot that asks Lottie to give up her place in the popular-girl clique and befriend the class nerd as the only means of following the postcard trace to Kitty. An over-the-top climax may test the patience of readers who like their puzzles airtight but will delight those who prefer to revel in the vast mysteries of time and coincidence, with only just enough explanation to satisfy them. anita l. burkam

(Copyright 2016 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)