The Order of Time
Book #1
by Scott P. Southall
My rating: 2 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy
Eleven-year-old twins Anastasia and Edward Upston enjoy spending time at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and learning from the curator, Dr. Gregorian. They never expected to discover that the doctor is a member of a secret order that goes back in time to protect history from another group that seeks to change it for their own benefit. When Dr. Gregorian is injured, it falls to Anastasia and Edward to go back to ancient Egypt and stop the bad guys from changing the past.
The initial premise of this book was intriguing, but it ultimately fell flat for me in several ways. For starters, Anastasia and Edward, at 11, are somehow both super skilled or talented in different ways. Edward is a great artist and highly intelligent, spouting off facts about ancient Egypt that he read about right before they traveled back and memorized well enough to share in detail. Anastasia is skilled in MMA, able to take down several grown men trained to fight, make amazing plays in a soccer-type game, and generally do many amazing athletic things. The story itself takes a weird turn partway through, becoming complete fantasy (as opposed to sci-fi, which time travel is more inclined to be). This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I definitely wasn’t expecting it.
I was also bothered by the level of violence and gore in a book meant for kids and pre-teens. During different fight scenes, there’s a mention of a guy’s head being separated from his body, teeth shredding flesh, and a dagger going through someone’s eye and embedding “itself to the hilt with a wet thunk.” Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but that’s quite a bit more than I’d want my 10-12-year-old reading. In the end, the book was okay, but it didn’t really engage me. I don’t know that I’d really recommend it to anyone, but if you or your pre-teens are interested in ancient Egypt and like the idea of modern kids traveling back to that time and aren’t bothered by anything I mentioned, you can find positive reviews at the link below.
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If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!
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