Fast Forward

With his grandmother's new invention, twelve-year-old Kieran finds that he can speed up time or travel back into the past, but this ability soon creates more problems than it solves

Grade 4-6-- A book that builds momentum through fast-paced adventure and catches readers in its wake. Bored with the slow pace of his family's life, 12-year-old Kieran zips over to his Gran's workshop to see her latest invention. What he finds looks like a television remote channel changer, but is instead an Anti-Boredom Machine. Excitedly, Kieran sneaks the ABM into his pocket and soon his life becomes a series of rewinds (that make him sick), pauses (a great way to play tricks on other people), and fast forwards (school is so much better this way). This Australian author has successfully created the universal mindset of a young boy who can move back and forth through his life in a matter of seconds. While there are many novel ways of traveling in time--through a videocassette recorder in Susan Beth Pfeffer's Future Forward (Delacorte, 1989) or even by way of a neighbor's time machine in Helen V. Griffith's Journal of a Teenage Genius (Greenwillow, 1987)-- Fast Forward will attract younger readers searching for an adventurous pastime. --Jana R. Fine, Clearwater Public Library System, FL
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.