Buzbee, Lewis. Bridge of Time. Fic. Fidel/Macmillan, 2012. 304p. $17.99. 978-0-312-38257-5. ADDITIONAL. GRADES 4-6.
Local author Buzbee adds to his oeuvre of supernatural literary titles (Steinbeck’s Ghost, 2008, The Haunting of Charles Dickens, 2010) with a San Francisco-set time travel adventure featuring Mark Twain. Best friends Lee and Joan are on a field trip to celebrate the end of middle school, but both drift away from the rest of the students and become “unstuck” in time and land in 1864. Luckily, they meet Sam Clemens, a fellow unstucker, and the three have many adventures going back and forth in time trying to get Lee and Joan back to 2012. Buzbee uses a relaxed conversational style that takes a little getting used to, but the blend of local historical, cultural, and geographical context with the kids’ contemporary sensibilities will make this easy-to-read adventure very appealing for Bay Area readers.
Hayley Beale, San Francisco Univ High Sch