The Winter Wolf by Holly Webb

Review by The Mole

Amelia is hiding from Freddie, Tom's rather large dog, as she has a fear of dogs, when she discovers a diary. The diary tells the story of Noah, a young boy in America, who is trying to keep a baby wolf safe from hunters.

Amelia falls asleep and when she awakes she has been transported into Noah's world to help him with saving the wolf.

A beautiful and gentle time shift story that brings to life, for the young reader, life in America during the frontier years.

The story is told in two parts that are interleaved. The narrator tells the story of Amelia while each chapter has an excerpt from Noah's diary that is in a handwritten font and told purely from his perspective.

Black and white illustrations abound throughout the book and the whole thing is an excellent and very easy read.

For readers in the 6-8 age group this book will delight.

Publisher - Stripes Publishing
Genre - Children's early reader

Seventeen Coffins by Philip Caveney

Review by The Mole

We met Tom Afflick in Crow Boy when he suffered a time slip while visiting Mary King's Close and went back to the time of a plague in Edinburgh. He hasn't settled back comfortably into daily life and is haunted by memories so persuades his mum to let him revisit Mary King's Close. But the Close holds no answers and when visiting The National Museum he falls and strikes his head, once again causing a time slip.

This time he finds himself in 1828 and seeks lodgings in Tanner's Close after befriending Jamie, a vagrant. He survives by doing odd jobs for Billy and Will, a couple of Irish chaps who have offered him a roof but keeps slipping to alternative pasts and futures as he waits to return to his own future. But despite the danger he is in in 1828 (and there is plenty!) he is also being pursued across time by one of the characters from his time in Mary King's Close - and it's not to wish him well!! And once again Tom develops an affection for one of the girls he meets in history but the word 'love' is not used, which will please the boys. Poor old Tom certainly knows how to go for impossible friendships.

Who hasn't dreamed of going back in time and changing or accounting for a little bit of history? Well Tom creates such a paradox in this story and it's marvellously done. In fact is it 2 paradoxes?

 Another excellent story from Philip Caveney and this one is even better than Crow Boy as there is even more action but just as much history. Aimed at 9 and older this will appeal to both girls and boys. I thoroughly enjoyed this one as much as Crow Boy. If you haven't read Crow Boy then be warned that there are spoilers in this one - so get a copy of Crow Boy.

Publisher - Fledgling Press
Genre - Children's, historic, thriller

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Crow Boy by Philip Caveney

Review by The Mole

Tom Afflick has had his life torn apart by his mother who has taken him to Edinburgh when she left his father to set up home with her new boyfriend. Tom is an outsider and is shunned and bullied by everyone at his new school. On a school trip to Mary King's Close he falls through the floor and a bizarre adventure starts when he is transported back to the seventeenth century.

Timeslip novels are a popular way of introducing history into novels but this is no ordinary timeslip story. It's more of a slip/slide/crash/slip type story and while it contains a lot of important history, that's not it's focal point. It focuses on the fiction added on and has the reader wondering "alternate universes? dreams? changed timelines?". Frequently in timeslip stories you get a feeling  that parts are merely a pretext to explain another part but this doesn't happen anywhere in Crow Boy - it just flows seamlessly along. It's exciting and engaging and readers won't want to put it down.

Extremely enjoyable and excellently done. This book will be enjoyed by readers of nine and older, surprisingly fifteen/sixteen year olds won't feel it's too young for them either. And while the hero is Tom, I can imagine it appealing to girls just as much.

Publisher - Fledgling Press
Genre - Children's/Teen's, historic, thriller

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Crow Country by Kate Constable

 review by Maryom

Sadie Hazzard isn't happy when her mum Ellie decides to move from Melbourne to the small town of Boort in rural Victoria. Ellie has fond memories of the holidays she spent there with her grandparents but Sadie thinks it's just plain dull. Gradually she makes new friends -  Lachie and Walter - and discovers how her family fit into the area's history. But Sadie also finds herself talking to the crows that seem to follow her around and have a task for her. In a dreamlike state she slips into the past to find a mystery that needs to be cleared up.

Crow Country is an intriguing time-slip adventure set in rural Australia. The present day story of Sadie and Ellie moving to Boort mixes with the flash-backs to the 1920s discovering wrongs committed then and helping to put them right. Without being moralistic or preaching in any way, the story explores the relationship between white incomers and aboriginal peoples of the Boort area, their differing attitudes towards the land, the particularly difficult area of 'mixed-race' relationships - working towards a better understanding from both sides. Nevertheless, it remains at all times, first and foremost, an excellent story.

Maryom's review - 4 stars

Publisher - Allen and Unwin

Genre - teen, time-slip adventure, 

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