Joe, Sam, and Fred have conquered the summer reading list, Greek monsters, and Roman gladiators, but a haiku-writing assignment lands them in what might be their scariest adventure yet! Samurai warriors, really big swords, and three twenty-first century kids are a dangerous combination . . . unless one of the boys can figure out a way to find the book and get them back home before disaster strikes.
Joe's Time Travel Haiku:
So what cranks the book?
What triggers the time warping?
Almost anything!
"Told at a quicksilver pace, the stories are furious and funny . . . . These volumes will be requested time after time." (Booklist)
Between hightailing it down the Tokaido Road, eluding a hot-tempered samurai named Owattabutt, and trying to fix their malfunctioning Auto-Translator, the Time Warp Trio may never get out of 17th-century Japan alive. Especially with all those razor-sharp
katanas poised and waiting to lop off their heads.
Joe, Sam, and Fred were working on a haiku homework assignment when they somehow triggered the mystical Book again, only to find themselves--thanks to some nearby books on Japan--summarily "flushed down four hundred years" and far from their native Brooklyn. And even if they can overcome the language barrier, our time-hopping pals will soon discover that they need to learn a thing or two about Japanese culture if they want to make it out alive. ("Our daimyo is Rudy Giuliani," while hilarious, isn't going to cut it.)
Jon Scieszka's traveling companions are in fine form, as ever, alongside the occasional illustration by Adam McCauley. Readers should love learning about ancient Japan with the boys, and Time Warp Trio fans in particular will get a kick out of the fact that a certain other trio--do you remember any great-grandaughters from the year 2095?--ends up saving the day. (Ages 8 to 11) --Paul Hughes
