Middle School

CONTENT WARNING: This story contains scenes depicting child abuse and mentions of kitten death. Reader discretion is advised.

Josie and Alec both live at 444 Sparrow Street. They sleep in the same room, but they’ve never laid eyes on each other. They are twelve years old but a hundred years apart.
The children meet through a hand-painted spirit board—Josie in 1915, Alec in 2015—and form a friendship across the century that separates them. But a chain of events leaves Josie and her little sister Cass trapped in the house and afraid for their safety, and Alec must find out what’s going to happen to them. Can he help them change their future when it’s already past?

Imagine if you could talk to someone one hundred years in the future. Would you want to know what happens in those one hundred years? Considering the past one hundred years and how things are going now, we can expect more wars, advances in technology, and more damage to the environment.

While the story perspective switches between Josie in 1915 and Alec in 2015, the overall story mainly focuses on Josie’s 1915 time period. Most of Alec’s chapters show him researching what happens to Josie and Cass in his past and their future.

Like all time travel stories, events are out of order and all wibbly wobbly timey wimey. It’s a bit confusing in the beginning, but the more you read, the more it makes sense. And don’t think too much into how these kids are able to talk to each other a hundred years apart. It’s all speculation.

A bit of a spoiler but more of a warning, Josie and Cassie are abused by their cold, possibly deranged mother. The way she treats her daughters, mainly Cass, is absolutely horrid. People who are uncomfortable about the subject of abuse should probably skip this book.

‘A Word of Advice’ at the end of the book warns of the dangers of using a talking board, a.k.a. an Ouija board. Full disclosure, Ouija boards don’t actually work. You can’t really use them to talk to spirits. It’s just a wooden board with the alphabet on it. It’s just a fun thing to do at sleepovers.

Overall, this was a spectacular story about a friendship that transcends time, and I highly recommend it.