Moonleapers
Book #1
by Margaret Peterson Haddix

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade science fiction

The good news is that 12-year-old Maisie is finally getting a phone like everyone at school. The bad news is that her family is going to spend the summer in Maryland so her mom can be with her great-aunt who is dying. A mysterious text on the phone that actually used to belong to Great-Aunt Hazel, a blank book, and a brief phone call from a dying woman launch Maisie into the world of moonleaping.

The official synopsis gives as little clue about what moonleaping is and what angle this sci-fi book takes as I did above, so it sort of feels like a spoiler to explain. But the info is available in the genre sections on both Goodreads and Amazon, and I really don’t think I can write this review very well without stating it, but I’ll still try to be vague. This book is an interesting take on time travel, especially since there’s technically no travel involved. It’s all about communicating with other times, not traveling there. I’m the kind of person who really appreciates a time travel story that is well done, where connections to the past or the future are made well and flow in the way that would make the most sense if time travel were real. And though there are definitely some liberties taken here that are somewhat common in this genre, they really worked for me. I can’t explain further, but I actually got really excited by a sort of twist that the author brought out later in the book to make the time travel angle work in a fresh way.

The story and journey along the way to Maisie discovering what she can do and what she’s supposed to do with it are maybe a little on the slower side, but I was never bored. As the set-up for more to come now that Maisie knows about her moonleaping abilities, the book did what it needed to do and gave plenty of intrigue along the way. Some things are left unexplained—maybe they’ll be explained in a future book, but to be honest, they didn’t feel to me like loose enough threads to be certain they’ll ever be explained. Though that doesn’t make me want an explanation any less. Then there were other aspects that I wish had simply been fleshed out more in the plot, especially some details related to the climax. Also, Maisie’s younger siblings at times acted or talked older than their ages, especially her brother, which threw me off now and then.

Overall, though, I enjoyed this book and am already looking forward to the next one, even though this one won’t be released for over a month! I do recommend this book for anyone who likes mystery and intrigue and light time travel elements. It is middle grade fiction, but I don’t think the younger audience makes the story any less readable for adults.

Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins Children’s Books for providing me a copy of this book to review.
Publication date: September 16, 2025

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