Bridge of Time

Gr 4–6—Best friends Lee Jones and Joan Lee are about to graduate from their San Francisco middle school. The night before the eighth-grade field trip, both sets of parents inform their children that they have decided to divorce. This unlikely coincidence sets the stage for the friends to become "unstuck" in time and "fall" into San Francisco in 1864. They meet another time traveler, Sam Clemens, aka Mark Twain, and, with his help, they set out to find their way back to 2012. Along the way, Lee and Joan are introduced to a cast of colorful and sometimes dangerous characters and subjected to the harsh realities of America in the 1800s, including the inequality among cultures and races as well as the lack of modern conveniences. There's a bit of "falling" into the wrong places in time; Lee and Joan even meet their future selves and, although the experience is strange, it offers them a reassuring glimpse of what is to come. This plot device, along with others, keeps readers invested in the characters and the story moving forward, except for the instances when Lee and Joan exchange knowing glances, described as "THE LOOK." These interruptions are especially disconcerting during the earlier chapters, but Buzbee is able to regroup and take his audience beyond these hiccups to deliver a strong sense of time, place, mood, and plot. Readers might even be enticed to pick up one of Twain's classics after reading this novel—Mary Beth Rassulo, Ridgefield Library, CT