Alistair's Time Machine

From School Library Journal

Grade 1-3 As science-fair time approaches, Alistair, "a boy of science," makes a time machine, and he travels throughout historyfrom medieval England to a palace in France, eventually stopping a woolly mammoth stampede in the Stone Age by sending the mammoths to some other time before he returns home. His machine doesn't work for the judges, however, and Alistair loses the competition. A dejected Alistair wheels his machine away from the school, thinking, "He knew that his time machine worked. . .but how could he prove it?" while the visual punchline shows the woolly mammoths hovering ominously behind the school. Text and illustration are well-matched in this amusing book; the deadpan, uninflected prose is a perfect counterpoint to the brightly exaggerated, cartoon-like pictures. The attractive illustrations add a lot to the humor of the book. The perennial appeal of time-travel fantasies, Alistair's situation (he is right, but unrecognized by the "real" adult world), and the effective blend of story and artwork will make this a winner with young children. Lauralyn Persson, Pawtucket Public Library, R.I.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.