This is Ann Brashares’ best work. She, and her brother outshine the wonder that was the Sisterhood novels in a new book that is harrowing, important, and will be a great historical teacher for Gen Z and Gen Alpha. This will make a wonderful tv show and hopefully will be adapted soon! Highly recommended!

This story has notes of Artemis Fowl and The Infinity Ring series.

Time travel, friendship, and peril. What more could you need?

A set of children stumble upon an old radio and use it to contact three children who live in the past. Together they communicate and share information on what life is like-not realizing the effects it can have on their lives.

I love the concept for this book. It had me really excited while going into the story. This story does have alternating character point of view chapters. Which I always enjoyed as a child but I know isn't always a popular format. It ends on a cliff hanger and will keep children reading and interested for more!

Thank you Netgalley for an advanced e-book copy of "Westfallen" by Ann and Ben Brashares.

A mismatched trio of old friends find themselves together again after digging up a strange radio that lets them communicate with three kids who are the same age and live in the same town but 79 years in the past. What starts out as a weird but harmless connection leads to a much larger problem. The information they share with the kids in the past changes history. The biggest issue occurs when the recent group end up in an alternative America under Nazi rule with no clear path on how to undo their meddling with time. This is designed for middle school readers and features a diverse threesome of friends on both timelines and all of the coming-of-age angst. Great for kids that started with THE TIME WARP TRIO and want the dystopia found in adult titles like THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE. A cliffhanger ending means there are more adventures to come. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.

I usually like books and stories set in alternate realities, but this novel was a bit of a disappointment. Two sets of three kids, one in 1944 and one in 2024, find a way to communicate with one another through a magic shed in the garden. Pretty soon, they discover that their chat has changed history, and that the US fell to Nazi Germany in WWII. Now they have to fix it. None of the characters are particularly interesting or well-crafted, there's a deus ex machina at the end, and of course at the end not everything is back to normal--ya gotta be able to sell a sequel, right? Ugh. Although this is listed as for middle-schoolers (perhaps because it deals with the Holocaust? although it's very coy about it), it seems like it's for a younger audience, and includes a lot of crass and crude humor and behavior on the parts of the kids.

*Warning! Upon finishing this book, you will experience an urgent desire to read more historical fiction!*
Six kids, three from 2023, three from 1944. They unexpectedly make contact with each other across the decades, after discovering a radio that appears to be broken at first glance. When a cardinal rule of time-travel is broken (“don’t tell what you know about the future”), it puts literally the entire world in danger of being ruled by Nazi Germany forever. Because when time-travel rules are ignored, sometimes the bad guys win…
Great introduction to history for middle-grade readers! If this had been released when I was a kid, I would have devoured it, more than once! As an adult, I found it difficult to put down!
My only complaint is that two of the characters, both boys, have names that begin with L, Lawrence and Lukas. I found it a bit difficult to keep them straight while reading. Just a small annoyance; I really enjoyed this book. Can’t wait for the next one in the series!
*I received a digital copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are strictly my own.*

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect, because alternate history/time travel plots can (naturally) go multiple ways. But I was not disappointed in the least - far from it!

The story is told from alternating viewpoints, as kids from 1944 and 2023 end up communicating with each other until a terrible thing happens - they inadvertently change the past, and (as demonstrated in Back to the Future), the future too. Their desperate struggle to fix the mistake raced me to the end.

I'm not at all the target audience for this book (sadly, a few years too old), but as a a series starter it's a doozy. Works well as a standalone, so don't feel like you'll be suckered into yet another one of those never-ending series, but I'll be watching for the next one! My middle-grader will just have to wait for me to read it first...

A fun and interesting approach to a time travel/alternative history book! I loved how the unintended consequences of small changes was addressed, as well as the friendships changed and mended over the course of the story.

Full review to come on Goodreads and Amazon. Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for a review copy

Almost a 5, just not a fan of a sort-of cliffhanger ending…

I know it’s a series but I’m bad at waiting. Other than that, no notes. I’ll be thinking about this one for a long, long time.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Jeepers! This book was so amazing! It has all the elements, and terms, that we know about Time Travel. The characters (both from 1944 and 2023) were very charming and funny, and the plot so well developed about what happens when one thing affects other and you change history . So, if you are into Time Travel stories (who isn't?), you're gonna love this one. Congratulations to the Brashares siblings, and thank you to Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing and NetGalley for sending this wonderful ARC.

I loved "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," so I was excited to check out this book from the same author. I saw that it was classified as middle-grade, but this book actually felt more YA to me (it's pretty intense!). The story is a wild one - three 12-year-olds in New Jersey end up connecting with three young people from 1944 via an old radio. But by talking with each other, they set off a butterfly effect with some seriously scary consequences. I loved how fast-paced this felt, and the two different perspectives (one from 2023 and one from 1944) worked really well. I was a little bummed with the cliffhanger ending, but I'm assuming that's because this is going to be a series. I'd actually recommend this one for any age just because of the imaginative and intriguing events.

thank you netgalley and simonkids for this book! i don’t usually make a habit of reading middle grade books but this is so well written informative and still age appropriate
i suggest you guys guve it a try for your kids
3.5 rounded up

Westfallen is a great middle grade fiction book. The story focuses on. 6 kids in 2 different time periods. It had you guessing at every turn. Definitely ends on a cliffhanger. I'm ready for the next book already.
**fairly clean read. Only 1 use of a possible cuas word. May be a little tough for some younger readers to handle.**

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was everything to me while growing up, so I was so excited to see a new Brashers book! This is an alternate history book for middle schoolers about what the US would be like today if we had lost WWII and Germany had won. This is so good! The characters were great, and I absolutely loved the ending!

This was such a fun middle grade book. I would've been really into it when I was about 9-12 years old. I can definitely see the target demographic eating it up but there's enough there to appeal to older readers as well.

The different timelines were interesting and a good way to teach history without making it boring. The cliffhanger made me gasp and wonder what's coming next.

I read an ARC of this book from NetGalley. All comments are my own.

This book had such a great concept. Three kids find an old radio and are able to speak with 3 other kids that live in the same town, but 79 years in the past. They share information on what it’s like in the future, not realizing the effect it can have on their world. Such a fun book and kept my interest the whole way through. I think my middle grade students will enjoy this book. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced reader’s copy.

Thanks for the review copy. This is going to be a great series. I love that siblings co wrote it. Holy cliffhanger, Batman, at the end.

Three 12 year olds in 2023 find an old radio in the shed and surprisingly it works and they can speak to three kids in 1944. They inadvertently change things in history and the book is a race to fix it. It was told from the point of view of the kids from 1944 - Alice, Lawrence and Artie, and the kids from 2023 - Henry, Frances and Lukas. I had to keep checking with who was where. I think if the kids from 2023 had names like Aiden, Jessica and Jason I would have found things clear. The characters were well developed and the friendship each of the groups and even though each kid was from a different background and their personalities were different they worked well together. The plotting was good and it was suspenseful when they realized they had changed the outcome of the war and even though they destroyed the radio finding ingenious ways to communicate. I wish I had a 7th grader again to share this story even though at times it was kind of dark. Not crazy about the ending. I would not be surprised to see another book with the characters.

Thank you to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster Children's for the digital copy.

An excellent historical fiction/ alternate history story that will surely teach the target readers more about the world wars that my generation studied in school. Ann Brashares has built a career on writing the stories her audience wants to read. SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS was one of the hottest titles when released and WESTFALLEN should have the same response.

Three friends have known each other since they were very young but their friendship has grown weaker as they move into differing circles in middle school. They are drawn together when they discover a means to communicate with children their age from the past. They thought they were careful to not share anything that might affect the future from the past but now they live in a completely differennt present and must figure out how to fix what they have broken. This is truly an excellent book for everyone over the age of 12, including us old folks. A very shareable book that has earned 5 easy stars.

This is a young adult novel that should be read by adults, too. It is a fascinating look at the world if Germany had won World War 2. Six 12-year-olds live in the same town, three in today's time and three in 1944. They communicate via an old radio and accidentally make some changes that affect the entire world. They know about the butterfly effect and realize they may have altered history, so they try to alter it back. Terrific storyline that surprisingly ends with a question mark that is a bit disappointing but now there had better be a sequel! The big drawback is that the ARC is only available on the NetGalley Shelf App, which meant I had to read the book on my phone. I hate doing that, but the book was so interesting that I read it on my phone anyway. Please, NetGalley, do not do this! Make everything available as a Kindle. Reading on a small phone screen is agony! However, I do thank NetGalley, Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing, and Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers for providing an ARC.