This is the latest of Anna Ciddor’s delightful time slip novels. In the others, the characters time travelled to Roman times. In this one, our heroine, Charlotte, time travels only as far as 1969, where she meets her grandfather when he was her age. Keith, nicknamed Moonboy during his childhood for his passion for the space program, is suffering dementia in his older years and is living in an aged care facility which looks after several dementia sufferers. Charlotte and her grandfather had been very close and it is hard for her to see him like this.
Checking out his box of childhood treasures, mostly cuttings connected with Apollo 11, she puts on his footy jumper and finds that it takes her back to the past, where she meets and befriends young Keith and his family.
She finds she can change the past, such as persuading his older sister Gwen to go to do a job at Honeysuckle Creek, the Australian tracking station which showed visuals from the moon. There Gwen becomes interested in the space program and becomes an engineer instead of working at a shop in Queensland as Charlotte remembers. This inspires Charlotte to change some more history for the better.
Charlotte finds ways to get her grandfather to recover some memories and speak again, by reminding him of the space program.
The scenes in 1969, with the moon landing approaching, are fun, especially for people like me who were there. There is one scene in a classroom where the children are given milk. I remember that. To this day there are people remembering this program with disgust because the milk was warm. My school was built of bluestone, so the milk was cool and I enjoyed it.
There is a milk bar where Keith and his family live and sell stuff. Milk bars were convenience stores that sold groceries and sweets in the days before supermarkets became the main places to shop. Actually, there were still milk bars around till only a few years ago, near where I live(the most recent to close was replaced with a cafe). It definitely made me sentimental, but for the younger children at whom this novel is aimed, it’s history, as much as the details about Apollo 11.
Anna has done a huge amount of research and has given links to the web sites she used, including one that shows a video mentioned in the book.
The style of this particular novel reminds me of the work of the amazing Gabrielle Wang, best known as the author of A Ghost In My Suitcase, which was turned into a play some years ago.
The chapters are short, and easy reading.
Highly recommended for readers 9-12.
Available in ebook and print, at all good web sites.
2 comments:
It's got a great cover!
What’s inside is also pretty good! 🙂
Post a Comment