About Time

Whether it's going through a crack in time, travelling to the past, or living the same day over again there's something about time travel stories that's fascinating. Find out for yourself with this list of time-slip stories.

A Wrinkle in Time series by Madeleine L’Engle

Meg Murray is an intelligent, but awkward girl and is troubled by her father’s disappearance. He is an important physicist who has been missing for over a year. One night Meg and her family are visited by a celestial being disguised as an old woman, she tells them that there is such a thing as a tessaract. A tessaract is ‘a wrinkle in space and time’. This leads Meg, her brother Charles and their friend Calvin on a journey through time and space to save Meg’s father.

Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Godspeed is a ship heading towards a new planet and all of its passengers are frozen in suspended animation until the ship reaches its destination. Except for seventeen year old Amy – she is violently awoken 50 years before the ship gets to the new planet. As she adapts to life on the strange spaceship she realises that her awakening  was no computer malfunction. Amy must uncover the ship’s secrets before it is too late.

 

Stravaganza series by Mary Hoffman (Book 6 City of Swords due September 2012)

Lucien is a teenager in London recovering from chemotherapy treatment. When his father gives him a red and purple marbled notebook to write in, his life is transformed. He falls asleep holding the notebook one night, and wakes up in the city of Bellezza  (a place much like 16^th Century Venice) in the country of Talia. Here he meets an mysterious girl called Arianna, who shows him the delights of the city. While Bellezza is beautiful, it also has its dangers – as Lucien is about to find out.

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

Samantha has it all. She’s beautiful, popular and has the perfect boyfriend. Friday, February 12, should have been just a normal day. Instead, it turns out to be her last. For the next seven days she relives her last day. Whilst attempting to figure out the mystery surrounding her death, she slowly realises that there are multiple sides to every story and that her actions have lasting consequences.

Guardians of Time series by Marianne Curley

The Guardians of the Named are a group of people with incredible powers like telekinesis and immortality. They travel through time and space in order to make sure that history happens in the right way. This is because the Order of Chaos is constantly trying to disrupt and change history in order to gain more power. Ethan has trained his whole life to become a Guardian. Now that he has completed his apprenticeship under his mentor Arkarian, he has to train his own apprentice - a girl called Isabel who goes to his school. Isabel is completely unaware of the Guard. Ethan must teach her to control her powers so they can save history from the Order.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Miranda is in grade six and lives in New York City with her mum. She is best friends with Sal but after he is punched by the new kid at school for no real reason, he shuts Miranda out of his life. Then Miranda starts getting strange notes from someone who seems to know all about her. This person predicts things in the notes that they couldn’t possibly know, things that haven’t even happened yet... Miranda must figure out what these notes mean and how they fit into a bigger puzzle. When You Reach Me is also a bit of a tribute to A Wrinkle in Time; Stead mentions the book a few times and Miranda's favourite character is Meg from AWIT. 


What are your favourite time-slip stories?