The Book of Stolen Time, breezy mglit summer reading anytime

After reading The Book of Stolen Time, which is one of the best titles of a book in recent memory BTW, you’ll see many Easter eggs just by looking at its cover. At first glance, a leopard, a snake eating itself, a male teen with a fairy on his arm, a girl holding a goose, and the two of them walking through a lake that they’re parting its waters is the stuff of a middle Earth-esque fairy tale. The Book of Stolen Time is the second book in the Feylawn Chronicles series. The first entry was the equally awesome titled, The Book of Fatal Errors!, and its sequel continues the world that was established in that book. Not having read that book, but jumping into The Book of Stolen Time is OK.

We haven’t read Errors!, but really enjoyed The Book of Stolen Time. It starts out very fast with Rufus and Abigail begrudgingly going to an entrepreneur-themed summer camp. That chapter provides enough information to give readers an inkling of their personalities and alludes to the adventures that they had in Feylawn. Feylawn is the mythical land that they saved in the first book and is accessed from the property that their grandfather lives on. Feylawn isn’t a secret to the family, they all know about it, but kids, being kids, are more curious and intent on finding friends and adventure.

For the first handful of chapters, the book goes between the siblings in our world, and then back to the happenings in Feylawn. While the kids are doing their projects at camp and wishing that they were in Feylawn, there’s a leopard that’s losing its spots, locks that are being mysteriously opened and a duo who are seemingly driving all of the bad that’s happening.

The Book of Stolen Time does an excellent job in the first act of touching upon what happened, in addition to setting up the twists that will occur. There’s a great sense of age-appropriate evil that the book establishes, and is for the most part the big bad throughout it. It’s a charming sense of evil that speaks softly, but one suspects probably carries a big stick.

If professional wrestling has only taught pop culture one thing it’s this, the heel is the backbone of a great story. The heel in The Book of Stolen Time has a couple of angles, and shifts as the book goes on. Even as it does that, the book maintains the taut feeling that the heroes have with the heel and that there are real consequences to its success or the heroes’ failure.

The middle third of the book introduces or reintroduces a couple of new characters. This is where reading the first book in the series would’ve been helpful as the sheer number of interactions muddied some of the narratives. If you’ve read the first book then you’ll probably know all of them, welcome seeing the characters again and read the book even quicker.

The Book of Time is a fine book for those upper elementary school readers through middle school. It’s got a soft, middle-Earth vibe that has a more playful give and take with the character’s attitude and their dialogue than many books you’d associate it with. This footloose feeling makes it easy and fun for readers to experience, even if they don’t immediately know who or what’s being referenced. Each chapter is only 11 to nine pages long, so it’s short enough for those ages to get through, even those slower readers, without being frustrated.

Pleasant isn’t an adjective I use often because it seems like a pejorative, but it’s not. The Book of Stolen Time is mglit that reads like a breezy, summer book. It’s lively, has moments of peril, great characters, adventure, and smarts, which is something that those aged readers will enjoy.

The Book of Stolen Time is by New York Times-Bestselling author, Dashka Slater and available on Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Macmillan Publishing.

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