It’s that time again … again! Today’s stack includes four very different stories involving time travel. I’ve got a picture book, two comic books, and a novel. Or, if you want to look at the types of time travel: two of them involve actual machines (one of which causes a time loop) and two of them are more like mysterious portal situations. Let’s dive in!
Brandon and the Totally Troublesome Time Machine written by Seth Fishman, illustrated by Mark Fearing
As you might know, I don’t cover as many picture books myself anymore these days. My youngest kid is now 12 and although she’ll still often buzz through some of the picture books that still arrive in the mail from time to time, she’s more interested in longer comics and kid’s novels. But I’ll make an exception for time travel.
Brandon (the middle child, of course) has invented a time machine in his bedroom, apparently out of cardboard boxes and Christmas lights and some other things he’s gathered from around the house. He does a lot of the expected stuff all within a handful of pages, like visiting dinosaurs, checking out some specific moments in history (both his own personal history and broader momentous occasions) before dealing with the important issue: his homework. Brandon failed his last test so he’s going to go back and help himself pass… but then his past self starts relying too much on future Brandon to take care of everything.
You can probably guess where this is going: after the two Brandons can’t settle things themselves, the time machine gets used and abused and pretty soon you have a whole bunch of Brandons and a huge mess. It’s a bit reminiscent of Calvin and his replicator, though in this case there are Brandons of different ages—plus, for some reason, Alexander Hamilton.
While it may not be a totally groundbreaking concept, it’s a silly story about time machines that younger kids may enjoy. After all, you’ll want to start prepping them for Back to the Future and all the other time travel stories that they’ll soon encounter, right?
Lost in the Future Book 1: The Storm written by Damián, illustrated by Àlex Fuentes
In this slim graphic novel, a few kids on a school field trip wind up falling down a weird tunnel in an ancient castle, thanks to the class bully trying to pull a prank. Now the group of five—which includes the bully himself—find themselves in a weird future world, full of new dangers. As it turns out, humans have almost been totally wiped out—and the people who did make it are stuck in the technological past, so it feels like the past. (Kind of the opposite of Star Wars, which takes place “a long time ago” but seems futuristic.)
The kids have to contend with their strange circumstances and figure out a way to get back to their own time—and that requires sticking together even though the bully and the rest of the kids really dislike each other. They do get some answers about the weird portal that brought them here (it’s magic!) but getting back home is going to be more difficult. Spoiler: this is just the first book in a planned series, and the kids do not actually get back home by the end of the book. (A hint: the second book, which comes out next week, is titled Trapped!)
You and Me on Repeat by Mary Shyne
As you might guess from the title, this one’s the time loop. It’s graduation day, and Chris has the perfect plan. After graduation, he’s going to a house party with his girlfriend, they’ll have their perfect first kiss … and that’s what will break him out of this time loop he’s been stuck in.
But you see that girl on the cover of the book? That’s Alicia, the class valedictorian … and not Chris’ girlfriend. She’s actually the other person stuck in the time loop with Chris, and she thinks there are other things at work keeping them stuck in the loop. The problem is, Chris and Alicia used to be best friends, but things changed when Chris decided he wanted to hang out with the cool kids. Now, though, they’ve got an unlimited amount of time to figure out where things stand.
There are parts of the story I really enjoyed; I’ve mentioned before that it’s fun that time loop stories can now often skip over the initial “oh I’m stuck in a loop” realization and get right into it. This story starts on Loop 20, and although we do get to go back and see how Chris first entered the loop, that part of the story is accelerated. The two people stuck in a loop also reminded me a little of the movie Palm Springs, because of the way that you get two people interacting together, sharing memories of the loop, instead of a single person who has to keep explaining things to everyone else.
Chris and Alicia take a lot of different approaches, including tracking down a physics professor for answers. In the meantime, they also catch up with each other on what their lives have been like over the past few years, and Chris starts to realize a lot of the ways his perspective of the world around him has been very limited. I feel like some of the plot follows an expected trajectory: privileged white boy gets a deeper understanding of his brown friend’s life, along with the friends-to-enemies-to-lovers arc. What’s not entirely satisfying to me is that so many time loop stories wind up being about a guy finally figuring out how to get the girl (very occasionally, the girl trying to get the guy). Alicia does have some more agency here because she’s also in the time loop, but it does feel mostly like Chris’ journey and growth, and her own story mostly serves as a learning moment for him.
I also had an issue with one minor subplot that involved a teacher who (it was implied) had inappropriate relationships with his students—he was the “cool” teacher who ran the D&D club at school and also liked cosplay and conventions. It just seemed like a weird mixed message, because role-playing games did play an important role in Chris and Alicia’s relationship (and in her relationship with her younger siblings)—but then it also feels like it was used as a trope for “look at this creepy grown adult playing games with students—of course he’s the groomer.” That didn’t sit well with me, though it’s not a big part of the story, just something that you see a couple times in passing.
Overall, though, it is a pretty good—if not totally unpredictable—time loop rom-com, and I did really like the illustration style, too. The interior pages are colored similarly to the cover: most sections are monochromatic, switching from one color to another to indicate different loops. It’s a neat effect, and Shyne’s characters are expressive and endearing.
The Edge of Yesterday by Rita Woods
Detroit, 1925. Monty Gray is a young physician from a prominent Black family, and he lives with the weight of a lot of expectations. He’s just been engaged to his best friend Aggie Syphax, though in truth neither of them were really interested in this marriage—it feels more like something they’ve both been pushed into by their families. Aside from his personal future, Monty has another pressing concern: racial tensions in Detroit are high after another Black family was chased out of a mostly white neighborhood, and his colleagues have been making plans about what to do next, whether to fight fire with fire.
Detroit, 2025. Greer McKinney has just moved back home to Detroit with her husband, Bass. She was a dancer in New York, but an undiagnosed disease has left her disabled, and the two decide a change of scene might help. She’s frustrated and stuck, and the situation has put a strain on their marriage. At least she’s been able to spend some more time with her best friend, Leah.
Both Monty and Greer start to have some strange experiences, though: they find themselves pulled into each other’s times. Monty marvels at skyscrapers and strange shapes flying through the air, but he also sees the bustling marketplace of his time turned into empty, decrepit buildings. Greer’s familiar neighborhoods are transformed—houses have vanished, the Black Bottom neighborhood restored. At first, these visions only happen very briefly before things return to normal, but eventually Monty and Greer encounter each other, and their visits become a little longer.
Leah (who conveniently has a physicist boyfriend) shares some theories about what’s happening, but mostly she warns Greer not to mess with time, because who knows what sort of consequences could result? But Greer isn’t really in control of her visits and she finds herself drawn to the past, a time where she doesn’t feel trapped by her circumstances. Meanwhile, Monty finds himself dreaming of the future that Greer describes: technological advances, a Black man becoming President, freedom to choose his own path in life … but he can sense that Greer isn’t telling him everything.
The story weaves in elements from real history—at least, the version of history in our current timeline—and digs into the history of Black Bottom and Paradise Valley, of the color line and the Klu Klux Klan. While Monty wonders how we move from his present to Greer’s, we can see from Greer’s perspective that in some ways we still haven’t moved far enough. It’s a powerful story that uses the time travel—which isn’t ever entirely explained—to bring together these two perspectives, and also allows them to shape each other.
My Current Stack
I got copies of Interference and Usurpation by Sue Burke, followups to Semiosis (mentioned a couple weeks ago), so I started on those right after I finished The Edge of Yesterday. So far I’ve already finished Interference and have read the first section of Usurpation. And I’ve got a couple other anticipated sequels waiting in the wings: The Martian Contingency by Mary Robinette Kowal and Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 7 by Matt Dinniman are calling my name!
Disclosure: I received review copies of these books. Affiliate links to Bookshop.org help support my writing and give money to independent booksellers instead of billionaires!
