A Year Without Autumn

August 29, 2011
Every summer 12-year-old Jenni looks forward to her family’s vacation at Riverside Village—it means spending the days with her buoyant and optimistic best friend, Autumn, and her family. But this year, a fateful elevator trip somehow transports Jenni one year into the future, and much has changed. It turns out that just hours after Jenni “left” the previous summer, Autumn’s younger brother, Mikey, was thrown from a horse and has been in a coma ever since, his family struggling to keep it together. As Jenni gradually pieces together what happened to her (and gets increasingly dire glimpses of the future through subsequent trips in the elevator), she works to return to the present and possibly avert Mikey’s accident. Kessler (the Emily Windsnap series) isn’t interested in the mechanics of time travel or even “why” Jenni’s time slip has occurred (as Jenni reflects, “What matters is the fact that it has”). Rather, it’s a vehicle, occasionally heavy-handed but effective, for her story’s empowering message: “Don’t just accept the life you’re given.... Question everything. Always attempt the impossible.” Ages 9–12.

December 1, 2011

Gr 5-7-Twelve-year-olds Jenni and Autumn are best friends looking forward to their families' yearly stay at a time-share condominium complex. When Jenni gets into an elevator that she expects will take her up to Autumn's condo, she discovers that it has lifted her into the future instead, a year ahead of the present. As she moves back and forth between both time periods, she learns that a tragic accident has had a terrible impact on both families, and she must figure out a way to change the present to avoid the tragedy. Kessler deals sensitively with divorce and death, offering readers a plot that is grounded in reality despite the time-travel element. Everything comes together in a tidy ending that readers will find satisfactory. Dialogue is a weaker aspect of this novel-it's a bit syrupy and unnatural at times, which reduces the emotional impact of the story.-Corrina Austin, Locke's Public School, St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2011

Time travel to a disturbing near future forces a preteen to cope for the first time without the help of her best friend.

Twelve-year-old Jenni Green and her best friend Autumn are inseparable. Along with their families, they even spend their summer vacations together every year at Riverside Village. There's so much to do there, from hot air balloon rides to adventure parks. Though Jenni naturally prefers museums to rock climbing, Autumn is always roping her into one crazy activity or another. This summer doesn't seem any different, until a ride in an old elevator lands Jenni in the middle of a strange and unsettling time-travel adventure all on her own. For the first time in her friendship with Autumn, Jenni must take the reins and figure out how to change the past in order to protect the ones she loves in the future. Jenni's first-person narration gives readers a ringside seat to her disorientation. Will she be able to save her friendship with Autumn and spare both of their families the heartache of a looming tragedy? Only time will tell.

Though the logistics of Jenni's time travel are a bit convoluted and the characters often feel disappointingly flat, preteen readers will likely be swept up in the suspense of Jenni's journeys back and forth in time. (Fantasy. 9-12)

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