Time Vandals (Craig Cormick, Omnibus)

This foray into children’s fiction by the historical author Craig Cormick has got everything: time travel, battle scenes, zombies, Napoleon, ninjas and haemorrhoids. Jack and Mei are recruited by Temporal Reality Enforcers (or ‘Time Warp Rangers’, as they like to call themselves) and entrusted with a very special mission: to repair changes made to history by the elusive Time Vandals. Imagine if Australia were a French-speaking country! When the Time Vandals give Napoleon some haemorrhoid cream, improving his health and thereby helping him win the war, it’s Jack and Mei’s first job to go back in time and set things right. Cormick has a wild imagination—a giant gnome called Ixi who speaks a butchered version of English called ‘time speak’ is just one example. Jack has a cheeky sense of humour while Mei has a touch of Hermione Granger about her, taking some things very seriously but proving to be very good in a crisis. There are plenty of laughs—with history lessons thrown in—in this rollicking read for 8- to 12-year-olds. For the right kind of curious reader, it’s sure to be a treat. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Hannah Francis sells books at the Sun Bookshop, blogs at www.culturedanimal.com and studies postgraduate journalism at RMIT University

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Category: Reviews