Ghostly Thief of Time

Our kids will love this book! I enjoyed the fun twist as we find out more about the suspicious custodian that the Emu Club is investigating. Can't wait for this one to come out!

Ghostly Thief of Time was an excellent story to read with my 6 year old. She was able to follow right along with it, and loved the randomly included pictures and silly opinions interjected by the boys.

There are some stories that are hard to read with your child, but thankfully Ghostly Thief of Time was not one of them. My child is easily amused, but we both liked the book because the unique format of 'hand-written' notes with the pictures that were actually part of the story instead of being just illustrations. This made it easy to keep the kiddo involved with what we were reading, and I could count on a picture every few pages to draw her attention back to it if she started to wonder.

Plus, it tackles one of life's great mysteries! Just why in the world DOES time go so slow in certain places? Now, unlike the Scooby Gang, the EMU club finds an unusual explanation, but that's all part of the fun. Every little kid, I think, wants to save the world, and Ghostly Thief of Time definitely gives children that experience on an easy-to-understand scale.

I highly recommend this cute, fun EMU Club adventure book to any parents out there.

The EMU Gang Is Back, and the Time Travel Angle Works

There are two main things going on here. First, are the EMU kids still fun? The answer there is an unconditional "yes". Second, is the time travel angle handled clearly enough to not lose a young reader. Again, the answer is generally "yes".

The easiest time travel books just send the kids back to some historical period to run around and do stuff. This is the specialty of Magic Treehouse and the Time Warp Trio and the like. They're easy because the time travel is just a change of scene and characters. It gets trickier when the heroes go back in time to change events in order to solve a problem in the present. If the plot gets too complicated then younger readers can get confused and frustrated. Or at least I get confused and frustrated.

MILD VAGUE SPOILER. This book goes up to the edge, but it's handled clearly. The EMU Club kids figure out that there's something funny going on with time in their school, track down the time traveller, mess up his mission, and then have to fix their mess up. Most of the book revolves around the kids tracking down the time anomaly and so time travel, as such, isn't the heart of the story and the enjoyment of the story doesn't turn solely on following the time travel plot. So, think of this as time travel light.

As to the EMU Club kids, this book continues the goofy deadpan style of the first book in the series. Our hero/narrator is appealing and cheerfully open to creating mystery and adventure out of nothing. The fact that his weirdest imaginings, (aliens, alien robots, time travel), turn out to be correct is a big part of the joke. There is a great knuckleheaded camaraderie among the EMU Club members even as they needle and tease each other. The author avoids irony and hip detachment and commits to telling a funny story without apology. As a bonus there is occasionally a throwaway line or observation that seems to be in there mostly to amuse the adult who's helping to read the story, and that's fine by me.

So, EMU Club books strike me as cheerful, optimistic, high energy neighborhood kids adventures, (with robot dogs), and that can't ever be a bad thing.

Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book in exchange for a candid review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.

This is a cute mystery book for young readers. Stuart, Brian and Violet (with the help of Ferdinand, an "alien robot" dog) form the EMU club and spend their time searching for and solving mysteries.

Something is happening with the time in Stuart's sixth grade room. The last part of the day seems to go slower than the rest of the day. When the EMU club sneak into Stuart's room during the Saturday book fair to investigate, they find that time goes slower the closer to the back of the room you sit as well as between 2:30 and 3:00. Why does the last half an hour of the school day seems to last two hours? (Who hasn't wondered about this at least a thousand times?) The EMU Club has a new mystery to solve. Is the school janitor really what he claims to be? Is Mr. Hartoonian a ghost? Could be the janitor's closet a time portal? As with most kids while trying to solve this mystery they mess things up and then have to clean up the mess.

This book is written in a report format, with colorful pictures. The characters are likable, and even the younger sister and brother have a good relationship. The time travel elements are easy to follow for kids, not confusing at all. This is a high energy neighborhood kids adventure (with robot dogs), and that can't ever be a bad thing. Definitely a book that young children (8 to 11) would enjoy