The Time Machine Next Door: Explorers and Milkshakes by Iszi Lawerence

Iszi Lawerence has created a cracking series that is ideal for that tricky age range in Primary – Y3 and Y4. The stuck in-between crew who are yet to be fluent readers that need to smash books with mature themes and 300+ pages are well catered for with this. Short and snappy is key for this age range, and if you throw in pacy adventure and a bundle of laughs then you are onto a winner. Tick and tick, in this case!

Sunil is the star of the show…and by that I mean he is clueless and mostly unaware of what is exactly going on. It is that age old story of boy breaks record, boy meets neighbour, neighbour has time machine to send him back to replace broken record, boy meets famous explorers as he tumbles through time without a plan!

Iszi Lawerence does a great job in plotting a story that could become quite confusing due to all the time travel nonsense. The use of famous historical figures adds a sense of fun that I didn’t expect and just shows how well crafted the tale is.

Now for the teacher bit. Of course, a time travel book has great history links and if you are teaching about Ernest Shackleton or Neil Armstrong then this would be a great book to use as a class reader. What I love about this book is the footnotes that are shared throughout. The facts that the children will learn from it are brilliant. Who knew that Neil Armstrong and Ernest Shackleton shared stories while stuck together on a PR visit? The geek in me adored this feature and the kids will as well.

This is the start of a series that you can easily lose time reading.