Twelve-year-old Mel isn’t expecting Christmas to be exciting. His family life has recently come apart, so he and two other classmates are spending the holidays at their posh boarding school, where they’re known as “the Left Behinds.” When a history teacher escorts the trio to a Christmas Day re-enactment of Washington’s crossing of the Delaware, things go strangely haywire, and Mel, Bev and Brandon inexplicably find themselves thrust back in time to December 25, 1776.
The resulting nonstop historical action begins when Mel discovers a body lying on haystacks in a stable and realizes that the deceased is none other than “stone-cold dead” General George Washington. Mel determines that a rogue iPhone app, iTime, is to blame, and he and his friends must fix history and save the Revolution. The excitement never stops in this riveting tale, leading Mel to Philadelphia in search of Ben Franklin (whose electricity can recharge Mel’s iPhone) and on to Trenton to surprise the Hessian forces.
David Potter’s debut is smart, funny and the first adventure of the time-traveling Left Behinds. Readers will charge through these super-short chapters like a Revolutionary soldier on the run.
This article was originally published in the January 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.
