The Time Camera. Simon Rose. Vancouver, BC: Tradewind Books, 2011. 92 pp., pbk., $9.95. ISBN 978-1-896580-09-8. Grades 3-6 / Ages 8-11. Review by Tanya Boudreau. *** /4

excerpt:

“It’s a camera,” Lydia said.

“It’s not a type I’m familiar with,” Jake said.

Like any digital camera, it had a screen on the back, but there were more buttons than usual. The controls were unfamiliar to Jake. “I can’t even tell which of these buttons is supposed to turn it on.

But as Jake tried pressing different buttons, the screen suddenly activated. “Okay,” he said, “let’s see if it works.”

Lydia stood in front of the desk. Jake aimed the camera at her and took a picture. However, when he pressed what looked like the display button, a different image appeared on the screen. It was not Lydia. Eleanor was standing where Lydia should have been, working at her desk.

“That’s weird,” he murmured

Lydia Chamberlain’s mom was a scientist who died while trying to conceal a secret from her research partner. The explosion that took her life consumed her confidential paperwork, but her laptop and camera were protected. They were in a safe place. When Lydia and her friend Jake find these items years later, they discover the danger behind her research in time photography involved someone they trusted. The pair try to conceal their discovery from ‘Uncle’ Magnus, but it’s impossible to hide a secret from someone when that person can also manipulate time.

      With a turn of a camera knob, Albertan author Simon Rose (The Alchemist’s Portrait, The Doomsday Mask) takes readers back to the past and into the future. When Jake and Lydia have the camera in their possession, they see the impossible; Paris in the eighteenth century; a crime before it’s about to happen, and someone who’s already dead. There are no illustrations in this book, but the chapters containing excerpts from Eleanor Chamberlain’s research highlight the suspenseful moments. This story will have children thinking about the good, and bad things, that could happen in a world where time travel is possible.

Recommended.

Tanya Boudreau is a librarian at the Cold Lake Public Library in Cold Lake, AB.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

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Published by The Manitoba Library Association ISSN 1201-9364

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