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The cover of this book gives the idea of a much different sci-fi than the book actually contains. Instead of an alien world, you have time travel, which also works for me. It just took a little time to readjust my expectations. Unfortunately, as I read, I ended up disappointed because Schaefer uses the narrative to tell a lot of messages rather than show, one of my bookish turn offs. The plot unfolded in a believable way yet the narrative felt wordy. This is perhaps because these extra words failed to develop the plot or characters or add just about anything to the world building.

This MG time-traveling sci-fi story gives a message of hope and resilience, even in a time when the world seems to be spiraling toward our extinction. Abby is constantly worried, and with good reason--she knows the many ways our earth is dying, and she doesn't see a real future for humankind. How can she focus on anything else? But when two time-traveling boys from the future show up in her new Florida town, she finally glimpses hope for humanity--and for herself. The story highlights family relationships and the ways we often put our own hopes and dreams and expectations onto the next generation. This would be perfect for kids who love stem topics, especially kids who are interested in space exploration because it goes into that somewhat extensively (the same, to a lesser extent, with environmental issues). Kids who find themselves worrying about our future will relate to Abby and find comfort in the idea that we can persevere through these challenges, just as we've done through many others. Life will always be full of both pain and joys, but that doesn't mean we can't treasure the moments we have and preserve hope for a better future.

***Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley so I could provide an honest review. No compensation was given and all opinions are my own.***

Many kids today look at the state of the world and feel a profound sense of anxiety. A Long Way from Home taps into that experience through the story of Abby, a girl who's becoming increasingly aware of the planet's many ecological crises, just her life is being upended by an unwanted move to a new town. When she meets two boys from 250 years in the future, it sets off a mysterious adventure that forces Abby to rethink her feelings about the world of tomorrow—and the world of today. A Long Way from Home will create space for some heathy conversations about doomism and how we manage our emotional health in the face of an ever-changing world.

Great read! The ecological justice theme is so important and this theme will definitely engage the reader! Bringing very real issues to younger audience's attention is sure to spark an interest in learning more. Abby is VERY likable character who readers will find real and relatable. Encourage adding this to classroom shelves!

A Long Way from Home is engaging and addresses real world age-appropriate life events in a fun and well-written way. I recommend this book.

This new middle-grade book has a lot to offer a young (or older) reader. There are people from the future that end up on earth; Abby is dealing with a move away from her best friend, her anxiety about life in general, and the turmoil occurring in her own home with her mom and dad.

I found this story to be engaging, and I enjoyed how the author brought in the people from the future, Adam and Bix, and Abby's interactions with them. The author also handled Abby's anxiety very well. She addressed it and gave Abby a link to her mother and a way for them to forge a new bond. 

Abby is caring and compassionate, which is evident in her interactions with Adam and Bix. She finds them a place to stay while they wait for Vanessa to arrive from the future. They have interesting conversations, and Abby is excited about the state of the future and wants to leave this time behind. However, will she give up everything to jump into the future? Are Adam and Bix doing her any favors by sharing what the world will be like?

This story is fast-paced, with a minor mystery to figure out regarding text messages Abby receives on her phone. Abby does make a new friend, Julianna, who helps her integrate better into school and becomes a good friend. She even finds common ground with her mom, which forges a stronger bond between the two.

This would be a good read for anyone over 8. We give this book 4 paws up.

Disclaimer: I received this e-arc from the author. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book: A Long Way From Home

Author: Laura Schaefer

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 4.5/5

Diversity: Anxiety Disorder MC

Recommended For...: middle grade readers, sci-fi, time travel, Tomorrowland

Publication Date: January 1, 2022

Genre: MG Sci-Fi

Age Relevance: 11+ (a mention of natural disasters, a mention of animal deaths, a mention of a mass shooting)

Explanation of Above: There is one mention of natural disasters, the disappearance of all animals/they all dying, and a mass shooting (nothing is graphically told or anything, it just plays into the MC’s anxiety of the unexpected).

Publisher: Carolrhoda Books

Pages: 280

Synopsis: On the Space Coast, Abby meets two boys, Adam and Bix, who tell her they're a long way from home and need her help. Abby discovers they're from the future, from a time when all the problems of the 21st century have been solved. Thrilled, Abby strikes a deal with them: She'll help them--if they let her come to the future with them. But soon Abby is forced to question her attachment to a perfect future and her complicated feelings about the present.

Review: For the most part I liked this read. I thought it was very much like Tommorowland (even the cover looks like the promo pics for it!) and it involves space and theories and sci-fi goodness! I loved the character and I thought it did good to be a fun read. The character development was great, the book was engaging and very kid friendly, and the world building was wonderful.

The only thing I think would make the book amazing is that I think expanding the book would have worked a bit more for the story.

Verdict: It was great!

A girl's worries surrounding family, school, and the state of the world around her smack face-first into the impossibility of time travel and the true meaning of home.

Abby can't help it; she worries. She worries about her mother, who always has her head in her job. She worries about moving to Florida and leaving her best friend behind. She even worries about the way humans mishandle the world and is sure that present-day-life is in fact a dystopia. While trying...or not so much...to handle the move to Florida as best she can, Abby runs into two boys, who obviously need her help. Without a moment's thought, she buys the shakes and takes them to her father's boat, where they can sleep for the night. Little does she realize that when they say that they're far from home, they're speaking of hundreds of years in the future. And if they don't find the person they're searching for, the entire future of the world is at stake.

It took me a little bit to sink into this read, since I was expecting something different, but this 'different' ended up being much better. While this is a time travel read and stays solidly on the science fiction path, it reads with the wonderful subtleness of magical realism. Abby is introduced as a difficult girl, mostly due to her over-excessive worries. Her life is actually very comfortable, her parents have good jobs, and they love her very much. She isn't battling any huge trauma or bullying, but simply is overwhelmed by the negative aspects of the world around her. And yet, she's a very kind and generous person, and that's what lets her amazing friendships blossom and bloom. It was interesting and enjoyable to get to know her, and it does help bring the problem of anxiety down to a level the age group can understand.

While Abby steers the world of time travel and friends from the future, she also has some growing to do herself. These two aspects balance out very well. The tale rolls along at a steady pace, never lagging into boring and sometimes shifting into a quick sprint of action to keep the tension high enough to make the story grab. The three friends are on a time crunch and have a few sticky problems to figure out. Add a touch of first crushes, evil micro aliens, and it's fun. Plus, the family is pulled into this one and shows that even parents have true problems to deal with. Oh, and there's hope as well as not forgetting all the wonderful things life offers now and can in the future if we're willing to work for it.

I can recommend this one and found the way it all comes together original and well done. Not only science fiction fans will want to take a look at this one because it's about so much more. This one is all about hope and not forgetting all the wonderful things life has to offer. I received a DRC and found this well woven.

Laura Schaefer shares a wonderful and well-written book for young readers, sure to stir conversation and thoughtful interactions around ecological justice. Recommended for schools and libraries.

The look of wonder on Abby's face on the cover is what first made me interested in this book and I'm so glad that it did because I wasn't disappointed! Abby is an anxious twelve year old who's mother moves the entire family to Florida for work. And then the school assigns Abby a mentor, Juliana, to help her settle in! Suddenly Abby is living near her recluse of an aunt, her dad is busy remodeling the house, and her mother is working sixty hours a week! Abby is convinced this is a disaster and honestly who could blame her? When she meets two time travelers escaping to their time period seems to be the perfect solution.

What follows is a deft exploration of anxiety, first crushes, coping skills, and finding new friends while still maintaining friendships after a move. I really enjoyed that as Abby gets to know her Aunt Nora she starts to realizes that both her mom and aunt have similar experiences as her with anxiety and that they've both developed different ways of coping with that anxiety. I like that Abby thinks running away to the future will solve all her problems and lift her from the dystopian reality she believes she's living in and how over the course of her book she starts to see that the future isn't perfect and running away isn't the solution to her problems that she wants it to be. Alex and Bix dilemma of getting home was easy to get invested in and I also liked how their relationship with Abby and her family developed. The future slang the boys used took a moment to get used to, but was fun. I also really enjoyed how the author weaved in actually history and science into the book while using that to flesh out Abby's mother's job at SpaceNow and the future Alex and Bix come from.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for the advanced review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily

Twelve-year old Abby and her family are moving to Florida for her mom's new job at Space Now, an aerospace company. There impending move gets her to worrying, as if climate change, global news issues and The Great Pacific Garbage Patch isn't enough for her to worry about. Abby's mom wants her to focus on the positives, but how do you do that when so many negatives surround you?

Once in Florida, Abby struggles to acclimate to her new school and being assigned a mentor doesn't help her anxiety. Abby then ventures out to explore the neighborhood and meets two boys, Adam and Bix, who tell her they're a long way from home and need her help to find Adam's twin sister Vanessa or V, who is ill. As Abby starts to help the boys, she discovers that they're not just visiting from out of town, they're actually from the future, a time that sounds like a utopia, compared to the dystopian world she currently lives in. Abby then secretly touches Bix's time vortex device and enters a portal to the year 2272. Thrilled by her discovery of this new world, Abby strikes a deal with Adam and Bix, she agrees to help them from being discovered and in exchange they'll take her with them when they return to the future.

Abby hides Adam and Bix on her dad's boat and secretly brings them food to eat. Hoping to get more answers about the future, Abby searches for her mother's aunt Nora, a brilliant scientist like Abby's mother, and someone she's always been curious about. Why did they become estranged? And why did Aunt Nora leave Space Now? Was it Aunt Nora's agoraphobia that made her isolate herself from her work and family or is there another reason? At the same time, Abby begins to spend more time with her mentor, Juliana and begins to enjoy the company as well as helping her while dog walking. When Abby's mom's newest space project begins to have troubles, her mom and Aunt find a way to reconcile their differences. As the time allotted in finding V draws near, they will all need to join together to ensure that they can find her and cure her illness before time runs out and V, Adam and Bix are stuck in Abby's time and the overall timeline will be disrupted.

A Long Way From Home was a super quick read that I really enjoyed. Abby is the kind of character that is pretty relatable, she's very anxious and worry's a lot about the state of the world and is also very compassionate and caring. She refers to her anxiety as being a part of the human package, just like opposable thumbs. She's very sweet and before learning about why Adam and Bix were at Checkers, she offers to buy them a milkshake just because she thinks they'll like it, and they look hungry. She even begins to open up to Juliana and offers to help her with her mom's business. I liked trying to figure out the messages that were showing up on Abby's outdated cell phone, and the connection they had to the overall plot. The way each of the chapters were a countdown (T-Minus... days to launch) gave some urgency to Adam and Bix's mission to find Victoria and also to Abby's mom's project at Space Now. Overall, this was an enjoyable read with some wonderful inclusion of women in aerospace and an interesting look at whether a utopian society provides a perfect future or whether exacting change needs to happen here and now. A nice selection for someone getting into the science fiction genre. ** A huge thank you to the author, Laura Schaefer for the ARC for my review**

Thank you to NetGalley for providing the eARC edition of A Long Way from Home in return for a fair and honest review!

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Content Warnings: Dystopic themes (pollution, natural disasters, poverty, climate change, etc.), Brief mentions of depression, Regular mentions of anxiety and coping methods, Animal Pregnancy/Birth

**Disclaimer: This list may/may not include all content warnings for A Long Way from Home. However, any warnings listed are all very mild and handled tactfully given it is a Young Reader/Middle Grade book.

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So! I have completed my first review of a Young Reader/Middle Grade books, and I'm very happy that it was this one that I chose first. A lot of people don't give younger books enough credit, since their stories can be written just as well and with as much emotional impact and influence as an adult novel can. The only difference is that they are written in a way that is easy to understand and comprehend, and usually, the ending is happy. Sometimes we need a happy ending in life, and if we can find it through a book, I think that's a wonderful thing.

To start, the book gives me some amazing Meet the Robinson's vibes with the time travel, the comparison of the present and the future, the wanting to abandon the old life for the new, how endless issues have been solved, etc. As that is one of my favorite movies, I was very happy to see the parallels between the two, even if they weren't connected at all.

Abby is a relatable character, given that she is twelve years old. Some things that kids do at twelve years old are cringy, and that's just how it is. Tweens using slang such as "bae" may not be as common now, but I'm also long from 7th grade, so maybe it's still a thing. For someone who WAS in 7th grade when that type of speech was used on the daily, it hit a weird little nugget of familiarity.

I think her frustration with her mother is understanding. Parents who mean well can often come across as overbearing and insufferable, and it's easy to agree with Abby that her mom does need to lay off sometimes. Positivity is always a good thing, but in endless amounts, it can be suffocating since, like Abby says in the book, "she never lets me say anything negative." Feeling like you're forced to feel only one thing can be detrimental to someone's mental health, especially when they cannot uphold those expectations, and that can lead into fear of disappointing people.

I thought all the characters were lovely, and Bix made me laugh out loud numerous times. The idea of a 4th grade, the equivalent of roughly 9 years old, talking in such blunt, objective, and scientific ways that were more advanced than grown scientists, was absolutely hilarious to me. Adam was sweet and charming, Olivia a comforting presence even if her role was small.

Julianna was interesting for me. Like Abby, I would've been immediately overwhelmed with someone like her being my school mentor. To see that obvious discomfort was a nice nod to the introverts in the world who don't handle such bubbly personalities. I like Nora and her air of mystery and her casual aloofness. It was relatable to my own personality, with a general air of neutral aloofness that can be tapped into with some gentle "persistence."

The writing was well done and easy to read. It was easy to follow along, and I really enjoyed it for what it was. If there was any content in the book that I would flag, it was all very mild and brief to keep in time with the age range of the book.

I just liked it genuinely as it stands. It was a good read, and I look forward to grabbing this one from the shelves as well!

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

Abby is not thrilled when her mother gets a job with Space Now in Florida. She's worried enough about everything in her life, especially climate change and the general state of the world, and she's not looking forward to starting a new school and having to figure out a new community, even though she is a little curious about meeting her mother's aunt Nora who lives in the area and was also a brilliant scientist. Abby's been working on her anxiety, and has some coping skills that she uses, but sometimes it's not enough. She's especially not thrilled about having a Where Everyone Belongs mentor, Juliana. She'd rather just fly under the radar at school, and doom scroll once she gets home. A couple of things stop her from doing this; she meets two boys at a local fast food restaurant who seem very out of place. Adam and Bix tell her that they are a long way from home and looking for Adam's twin sister Vanessa (or V, as she likes to be called), and that they need a place to stay while they are waiting for her. Luckily, Abby's father has an enclosed boat docked nearby, and he's too busy fixing up their house to spend much time at it. The boys' story gets more and more interesting; they claim to be from 250 years in the future! After experiencin their world through a piece of their technology, Abby decides that the future looks much better than the present, and she's ready to leave everything behind to join them once they find V. She also gets drawn in to Juliana's mother's dog business, and finds that she likes hanging out with Juliana and her family. She also approaches Nora, and the older woman grudgingly visits with her, even though she is not on good terms with Abby's mother. As the Space Now Athena Heavy project approaches its deadline, and Abby's mother is involved in getting ready for its launch, Abby steps out of her own comfort zone to help Adam and Bix. It doesn't hurt that she really likes Adam and is looking forward to her new life in the 23rd century. She keeps getting weird messages on the refurbished smart phone that her father has gotten her, and these start to have some meaning when Adam and Bix's quest isn't going well. The Space Now launch runs into trouble, and Abby's mom and her aunt have to come to an understanding when they all need to help Adam and Bix. Will Abby get to pursue her dream of living in a utopian future, or will she find that Florida in the present day is where she needs to be?

Strengths: Many of my students will see themselves in Abby, since everyone seems to be anxious about everything these days. I absolutely loved Nora's explanation of anxiety-- it's something that's part of the human package, like opposable thumbs. We all have to deal with it from time to time. Abby does grow during the book; her life doesn't become perfect, but she gains some perspective, and that is such a crucial realization for middle grade readers. Very well done. I was sucked right in to Adam and Bix's story and was completely happy to suspend any disbelief. Perhaps the fact that Abby's mother and great aunt were involved in the space program made the science fiction element seem more realistic, but this struck me as exactly the kind of science fiction book that readers who aren't exactly fans of the genre will be more likely to pick up, while readers who are sure that they could travel to the future will be equally enthralled! This was a good spin on a moving tale as well; Abby is able to make friends and settle in to her new environment even though it was very different. I was also a big fan of the message that when things look bleak, sometimes it helps to do one small thing, and I loved the depiction of women in a demanding field of science, especially contrasting the aunt and mother's experiences a number of years apart. There's even a nicely romantic scene at the end that rounds things out nicely. Looking forward to handing this to students.
Weaknesses: The cover could be better, although it did make me think about Danziger's 1986 This Place Has No Atmosphere!
What I really think: Think of this as a magical realism type of science fiction; based enough in the real world to make sense to readers who have trouble getting their minds around elaborate world building. Also a great choice for readers who want to investigate current ecological topics in books like Dimopoulos' Turn the Tide, Guillory's Nowhere Better Than Here, Cartaya's The Last Beekeeper or Rosenberg's One Small Hop.

This story is about a girl named Abby. She is about to go into the 7th grade, move across the country for her moms new job, and on top of all of this, she is riddled with anxiety about pretty much everything. The things that really overwhelm her are kind of those big things going on in the world. Like war, gun control, poverty, climate change, and she is freaking out about every little thing that she does and how that might attribute to those problems plaguing our world. I found this very realistic as a 6th grade teacher because I feel like Middle School is when you learn about a lot of the problems happening in our world and it can be really overwhelming. So Abby moves from PA to Florida, for her moms new job and one of the first few things that happens while she’s there is she runs into these stranger looking boys around the same age as her. She learns if she helps them she can do to a totally different planet at a totally different time period which will help her escape all the problems currently plaguing her. This book was such a fast read, I finished it in less than 24 hours and it was super fun and enjoyable. It’s a book about self discovery, finding your purpose, friendship, family, moving, and a lot of themes that I think a lot of people in the middle grade age range will be able to relate to. And also from a teacher perspective, because this book is science fiction but also deals with current events I think and can be tied in with a lot of different subjects curriculums very easily. This was a very fun read!!

This books deserves more love than it appears to be getting. The cover doesn’t draw you in as much as it should.

Abby is anxious about how bad the world is. She has no hope for the future, and feels that she is currently living in a dystopia, and no one realizes it.

She has been forced to move to Florida, for her Mom’s space work, and she resents it.
And then she meets Adam and Bix, two boys from the future, and the give her a glimpse of what their time looks like, and she realizes that is the answer to her dilemma. Escape to the future where everything is hunky dory.

I like how the book included the parents in the story. So often when there is something magical or fantastic, the parents are left out, but not only does she engage her mother, in the end, but also her great aunt, whom her mother is estranged from.

I was so worried, reading the book, that it would all be a trick, and that the boys weren’t *really* from the future, but i finally let down my guard when Abby gets a glimpse of their time.

Cool story, and cool how she solves the mystery of their missing companion, whom they have come to rescue.

A great middle grade read. I hope more people discover it when it comes out in October 2022.

<em>Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.</em>

I really enjoyed Long Way From Home!
For a middle grade book it not only has an interesting and engaging storyline, but relatable characters that introduce young readers into more serious content that can be seen in later books. The main character is shown having anxiety, but her growth encourages the idea that it’s okay. The book also talks about real issues such as climate change and school shootings, which is why I would recommend it for middle and not higher elementary school. However, if your not paying attention, the main characters thoughts do jump around a lot, so it’s easy to get lost. However this is realistic and does contribute the the story if you are following along. Great read!