Book: The Time Travel Twins
Author: James Patterson and Tad Safran
Publisher: Little, Brown Young Readers
Year: 2024
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Twins Pew and Basket Church dream of escaping the miserable misfortune of their isolated orphanage. Or, even better, the return of their unknown parents. But even in their wildest dreams, they never imagined the truth : The twins can travel through time.
Armed only with perplexing clues to their past and a time travel talisman that is key to their future, Pew and Basket embark on an epic quest It takes them into George Washington’s war tent and on a hunt for the Liberty Bell, from the battlefields of the American Revolution to a pirate republic in the Caribbean and beyond, all in a race to uncover the secrets of their family – and outsmart time’s greatest villain.
History, mystery, humor, and adventure collide in this delightfully clever romp that heralds the arrival of James Patterson’s newest blockbuster series.”

Review : If you’ve been here for a while, you might know that while I don’t often read and review young adult books, when I do, I tend to find myself disappointed. In general, the young adult advanced copies I’ve read over the years have left me wondering if I’m simply holding young readers to a high standard they may not be able to truly live up to. I wonder often if I’m so far removed from being a young reader that I simply cannot remember what it was like to read books as a pre-teen; my expectations have been dashed so many times. The Time Travel Twins, however, has fully restored my hope and faith in a high quality, enjoyable young adult read. As someone who works fairly hard to avoid a James Patterson adult read, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from this advanced copy, but it was genuinely such a fun and enjoyable read, I’m excited for the kids who pick this book up and find themselves sucked into a world full of time travel, mystery, and witty adventures.

Prior to heading to the front of the book for a bit more information about the authors, I’d already decided The Time Travel Twins reminded me a great deal of A Series of Unfortunate Events. The authors have created 12-year-old characters who talk and think like adults, not in a necessarily unbelievable way, but in a funny, charming, disarming sort of way – Basket and Pew, named for the literal church where they were found as abandoned babies, have grown up in an orphanage that’s educated them not as children might be, but as PHD candidates might be. They have amassed a wealth of information from higher education learning in a grueling atmosphere where they’re fed rock hard bread and worms, taught mathematical principals most adults wouldn’t understand, trade wind patterns, ancient ship types, and all manner of seemingly nonsensical information no child would ever need to know. Wink. The authors don’t speak down to the readers, taking several instances throughout the book to break the fourth wall and address the reader with little tidbits to explain complicated or new phrases in a way that feels like the reader is part of the adventure, rather than someone who hasn’t been educated to the tremendously high degree that Basket and Pew have been. It reads like Lemony Snicket wrote the book, and when I read a bit more about the authors, I discovered Tad Safran had, in fact, served as a writer for the Series of Unfortunate Events TV series.

This book is truly what would happen if Lemony Snicket got a little too engrossed in history and began writing historical time travel fiction for kids. It’s great. Where the books deviate from this particular style of storytelling, though, is in the detail and commitment to teaching the reader. Rather than an all out rampage of fun and whimsy and adventure, TTTT is smartly wrapped up in a sneaky campaign to teach the reader the ins and outs of the revolutionary war and, based on the ending, I’m guessing will continue to teach future readers about additional historical events as the series unfolds. It reminds me of the computer games you might, if you were my age, have grown up playing that were thrilling adventures serving as a sneaky vehicle to learn math and English particulars. Every so often the authors break off and give us an illustration of a scene, complete with a small blurb to further explain details either of a specific battle or the details of 1700’s attire that might not be familiar to the reader. It works so, so well. Everything about this book was amusing and charming and informative, giving the reader something to grasp onto and chew on while they found themselves whisked away to the pirate’s republic, or sucked into a time vortex to narrowly avoid escaping certain death.

It should be noted that this book is about as far from low stakes as a younger reader’s book could be. There’s action, adventure, and like I previously mentioned, the threat of certain death. There’s suspense building and nail biting, and to my displeasure, a lot of “but we just had that thing and didn’t know we needed it and now we need to backtrack to get it!” which, ultimately, earned this book one less than a perfect score. It did feel as though we spent far too much time zig-zagging between having the thing we needed and throwing it away, and going back for the thing only to be thwarted in the process. I’m not a side quest kind of person, if you can’t tell! All in all, the book felt like it was about 50 pages too long, all thanks to the back tracking and side questing – I think it could have easily wrapped up so much sooner and without any to-do, I doubt you’d have missed out if we didn’t have just one fewer instance of the above scenario.

It’s also worth mentioning that while Basket and Pew are twins, Pew is a Black boy and Basket is a white girl. And they come find themselves in the midst of the revolutionary war. Perhaps you can draw some conclusions on your own here? There’s some talk about racism, slavery, and what it might mean to find yourself in an era where the color of your skin alone could mean your demise. There’s also discussion about what it might mean to change time, to tell general Washington to abolish slavery before the war was concluded, what that might mean for the future of the United States, and why the North had the resources available to win in a battle against the south (the future civil war). The issues are addressed frankly and don’t gloss over them terribly, but are also pretty clearly written from the perspective of two white authors, so there’s certainly something the be desired here when it comes to navigating a character’s existence in a body that’s viewed as less than or other in the midst of war. I know, too, that this is a children’s book and doesn’t need to go into the horrific specificities of what that reality might look like, but there was something about making witty banter over why one simply cannot change time that rubbed me the wrong way and I think that’s worth being said.

Ultimately, this book was an enjoyable read that didn’t sacrifice education or writing quality for fun. It ended on a cliff hanger, leaving the door wide open to future books, and it makes you want to continue reading (for most of the book, anyway. Like I said, it does feel about 50 pages too long). I’m pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this one and suspect many kids will feel similarly.

Advice : This is the kind of book you give to your advanced reader without feeling like it isn’t going to push them to learn something. It’s going to teach not only history but ethics, confirmation bias, and the importance of kindness to those around you, regardless of who they might be (like a pirate). I highly recommend it!