Would you time travel if you could?

Time Travelling with a Tortoise

Author: Ross Welford @rosswelford

Illustrated by: Tom Clohosy Cole

Published by: Harper Collins @HarperCollinsCh

Published on: 4th January 2024

Price: £7.99

First line: I should really do one of those ‘Previously on…’ things like they do on Netflix.

Genre: Science Fiction

Age: 8+

What’s it all about? This is the second story with the same characters (Al Chaudhury, Grandpa Byron, Alan Shearer the hamster, Paulie, Carly etc) from December 2015s ‘Time Travelling with a Hamster’. Al is now in an alternative universe, where most things are the same, but again he is messing about with time travelling, but this time he is going further back than he’s ever been before (my accident) and forward in time as well. Again, it’s for a solidly good reason – to help his Grandpa, whose been in an accident with a tuk tuk and a cat. But then, someone gets left behind in time, and dad’s doppelganger rule is thrown out the park with possible disastrous results. Surprise, surprise, if you mess with time, it has a way of messing with you. Will Al ever find his home real timeliness and be satisfied with how things turn out?

Why should I read it? Having not read the first book, I was a little trepidatious at the start of the story as I didn’t know the characters and what with all the time shifts and starting the story further ahead and then jumping back to explain what had happened leading up to the dinosaur moment, I was quite confused to start with. However, once the back story got going, I started to enjoy the book and the characters. Al and his Grandpa are brilliant creations, both batting off each other back and forth. There’s compassion and love clearly shown between them. I like how Al’s anxiousness is calmed through the discussions they have. He also develops his relationship with Carly as well and her original abruptness disappears to leave behind a kind, funny teenager whose great to rely on in a crisis. She’s also nicely realistic when she first sees the time machine: ‘Is that it? said Carly, making absolutely zero attempt to hide the disappointment in her voice.’ There’s a great use of AI in the story too – repairing some of the corrupted time machine code – however, from then on I always saw Al’s name as AI! The story zips along nicely once Al starts telling the back story and twists and turns until the end.

Thanks to the @The_UKLA and @LyndaJGraham and their #uklalucky13th competition for the review copy.