by Stephen W Martin (Author) Cornelia Li (Illustrator)
Max and her dog, Boomer, are in trouble. Big trouble. Max has accidentally smashed an heirloom vase: the only treasure her great-great-great-great-great-great-grandma managed to save when her houseboat sank 234 years ago. Max can come clean--or, she can build a time machine! If she travels to the past and smashes the vase then, there will be nothing for her to break in the future. Brilliant! In the time machine--surprisingly easy to construct--Max and Boomer bump around to the past and the future, tangle the string of time, and crash into the ancestral houseboat, promptly sinking it. And in the past, the vase remains intact. Disheartened, Max and Boomer return to the moment just before their adventure began, to warn themselves NOT to build a time machine.
In spite of the warning, Max tosses a Frisbee for Boomer, directly in the direction of the vase, and their wild adventure begins again, and again, and again... Joyful and uproarious, this is a one-of-a-kind circular tale that plays on the perils of time travel.
WorldCat is the world's largest library catalog, helping you find library materials online.
Reds and blues suffuse the visual palette, and while Max, who presents white, and her hijinks read well, the eclectic, energetic art steals the show. Rev up your flux capacitors, because the space-time continuum will never be the same again!
Max and her dog Boomer are playing frisbee when the runaway orb shatters a family heirloom that belonged to her great-great-great-great-great-great grandma. Instead of being honest about the broken vase, Max cooks up a convoluted plan to build a time machine, go back in time, and smash the vase in the past, so "there would be nothing for her to break in the future." Needless to say, mess after mess occurs, when finally Max realizes that she must convince her old self not to build the time machine. This is a rather silly story that attempts to teach children to tell the truth, even when they have done something wrong. The illustrations are vibrant, and show the different time periods that Max visits. VERDICT A light, funny but largely forgettable look at damage control and facing consequences.-Maeve Dodds, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, NC
Copyright 2019 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.