Jack's Time Machine

While visiting his grandfather just before Christmas, Jack takes an amazing trip back to the time of the Aztecs and must solve a series of puzzles before finding his way back home.

Grade 3-6-While visiting his grandfather, Jack and Grandpa's dog Scruff walk into a time-travel grandfather clock and are transported back to the time of the Aztecs. They are taken at knifepoint by a Spaniard who promises to help Jack reach the Temple of the Moon to retrieve his clock if, in return, the boy will help him acquire a gold star. Jack manages to elude the thief but must answer five intriguing visual puzzles to bypass traps in the temple and navigate its chambers. Once in the Temple of the Moon, Jack gives an Aztec priest his Grandpa's glasses (which were inside the clock) and in gratitude, the man from the past assists his transport home. The writing is pedestrian at best. The artist uses bright acrylic or oil paint to create precise, hyperrealist images that have an appropriately eerie look. The layout is attractive with a repeating border in the corners of text pages, and several full-page spreads of Jack in his Grandpa's living room and outside and inside the temple. James does not define images used in the illustrations in terms of Aztec relics or art. The focus is on Jack, his Indiana Jones-type adventure, and the details in the puzzles; an answer guide is provided. Only libraries with avid puzzlers, abundant shelf space, and generous budgets will want to consider this lengthy and not particularly memorable story.
Laura Scott, Baldwin Public Library, Birmingham, MI
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