Publishers Weekly Review
"The sheer exhilaration of the adventure and the many fascinating historical and scientific allusions will keep readers engrossed," said PW about this "romp through space and time with an intrepid 11-year-old heroine." Ages 8-12. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved |
School Library Journal Review
Gr 6-10-A Time Tornado drops ancient horsemen and chariots into present-day London and causes a busload of school children to disappear into thin air. A mysterious, self-proclaimed scientist known as Regalia Mason secretly seeks to profit from this event and other disturbances so that she can harvest spare time and sell it through her company. Meanwhile, a sinister alchemist named Abel Darkwater seeks a clock known as the Timekeeper in order to become even more powerful than Mason. At the center of this struggle is an orphan named Silver and her 500-year-old house, Tanglewreck, where she lives with her "aunt" as the prophesied Keeper of the Clock. She embarks on a prophecy-fulfilling interstellar journey to locate the Timekeeper and guarantee the safety of time as we know it. Winterson masterfully weaves together an imaginative array of settings and characters to bring the story to its exhilarating fulfillment. Silver's varied relationships add even more depth, encapsulating family, friendship, deceit, and abuse. Some explanations of futuristic technology, concepts of time and space, and even humor will likely be too challenging for most children younger than the book's 11-year-old protagonist, but this time-bending sci-fi adventure will be a fine addition to young adult collections.-Emily Rodriguez, Alachua County Library District, Gainesville, FL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. |
Booklist Review
Time has become unpredictable; "time tornadoes" are picking up school buses and depositing wooly mammoths on the banks of the Thames. Eleven-year-old Silver lives in a sprawling manse, Tanglewreck, with her greedy guardian. One day evil Abel Darkwater visits Tanglewreck in search of a timekeeper that he insists belonged to Silver's father, who, with his wife and other daughter, has disappeared. Silver has no idea what he's talking about, but\b \b0 Darkwater isn't convinced. He imprisons her in his clock-filled London home, where he plans to keep her until she tells him what he wants to know. She's rescued by Gabriel, a strange boy from a clan that has made its home beneath London for more than a century. Together, Silver and Gabriel search for the timekeeper and foil the villain. Winterson seamlessly combines rousing adventure with time warps, quantum physics, and a few wonderfully hapless flunkies. Her clever science will draw fans of Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, 0 and her dastardly villains and resourceful youngsters will remind readers of Lemony Snicket's books about the hapless Baudelaires. --Diana Herald Copyright 2006 Booklist |
Horn Book Review
(Intermediate, Middle School) ""All time is always present, but buried layer by layer under what people call Now,"" proposes Tanglewreck, laying the groundwork for a philosophical flight of fancy from acclaimed adult author Winterson. In near-future England, Time is unraveling, pulling people in and out of the shifting strata of reality. As the public panics, archenemies Abel Darkwater and Regalia Mason seek the Timekeeper, an ancient Egyptian clock that will give them sway over Time. Eleven-year-old orphan Silver, living at her ancestral home of Tanglewreck under the neglectful guardianship of a woman claiming to be her aunt, is the unknowing key to both searches. Refusing to be a pawn in their struggle, Silver runs away, and with the help of Gabriel, a child from an under-layer of Time, travels across a surreal landscape of past and present on her own quest for the Timekeeper. The adventure unfolds in a lucid, lyrical blend of fantasy, physics, and theology reminiscent of Madeleine L'Engle, but excels on its own terms, with a stubborn, fully developed heroine who overcomes the limitations of a commercialized world to earn the friendships and victories that save her life and country, if not her vanished family. Unabashedly intelligent, Tanglewreck guides readers through an exciting new level of the familiar universe of speculative fantasy. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved. |
Kirkus Review
Quantum mechanics, psychic powers and alchemy blend with adventure in an appealing read for fantasy and science- fiction fans alike. Silver Rivers is seven years old when her parents and younger sister disappear. Four years later, time becomes unstable and a school bus filled with children disappears into a time tornado while a wooly mammoth is spotted on the banks of the Thames. Silver has the central role in finding a mystical relic, the Timekeeper, which will resolve all the problems with time. The complex plot has many subordinate threads and plays itself out in two universes, rural England and above- and below-ground London. Well-developed main characters add liveliness and suspense to the story, while secondary characters (a pair of inept thugs, the original Schrödinger's cat) add touches of humor to a basically sober story. The climax is chaotic and exciting; the resolution is realistic, bittersweet and a little too quickly achieved. Give this book to readers of William Sleator's Marco's Millions (2001) and Last Universe (2005), and Suzanne Collins's Underland Chronicles. (Fiction. 10-14) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission. |