12-year-old Michael is a kind and sensitive kid. He’s also anxious and worries about everything. Especially Y2K!
The year is 1999 and Michael is stockpiling supplies and planning for what he fears will happen to him and his overworked single mother. When a strange kid shows up in the courtyard of his apartment complex, Michael isn’t sure if he should get involved, given all he currently has on his plate.
With the help of his “babysitter” Gibby (he says he’s too old for a babysitter), Michael discovers the reason that the newcomer seems odd. Ridge is a time travelling teenager from 2199 who impulsively entered the spatial teleportation module while it was still being tested.
Michael and Gibby are trying to help Ridge get back home and Ridge’s family of scientists are also desperately trying to do the same thing as the story moves between the future and the present.
Erin Entrada Kelly has created a science fiction middle grade book that will capture your attention and your heart. The characters are real and interesting and she represents the issues that middle graders struggle with such as bullying, first love, loneliness, the challenges of making friends, anxiety, and grief.
While Michael is focused on his worry about the future and getting Ridge to tell him everything about what is to come, he learns to embrace the time he’s living in.
The time we are in is the most important.
This book teaches us that it’s best to focus on the here and now, or what Ridge calls, the first state of being.
I’d highly recommend this novel on time-travel which is full of philosophical questions about the meaning of time, the future, and the impact of our actions on our future selves. It would be a great book for class discussions.
The present and future come together in an intriguing way at the end of the story. If you’re anything like me, you, or the middle schooler in your life, will be thinking about the time space continuum for days after you finish the book.
Helps with: being in the moment, dealing with anxiety, fears, and bullying, friendships, found family, grief, first love, understanding the time-space continuum, living in the 1990’s, and thinking outside the box.
Author: Erin Entrada Kelly
Publisher: Greenwillow Books, 2024