The name of this book is Magic in the Mix by Annie Barrows. The characters in this story are three sets of twins which are Molly, Miri, Robbie, Ray, Nora, and Nell. One day a guy named Ollie came over to fix the Gill’s back door. When Ollie walked in the house he counted all the children, looked at their faces, and looked at their heights and frowned. Ollie frowned because he couldn’t believe that he was seeing 3 sets of twins. Molly’s father said to Ollie that the porch was in the other direction. Miri and Molly wondered if Ollie knew the truth about the house. Ray and Robbie were on their way home from school and they were playing as they walked along. When they came near the house they saw Molly and Miri on the front porch. The girls screamed MOM, the boys are here! Then the boys heard their mom and knew they were in trouble. Mom was talking to Ray and Robbie about Mr. Emory calling her and telling her that they flunked their test and cut class. In order to make up that grade Ray and Robbie had to put on a history play for Mr. Emory’s class. While Miri and Molly were upstairs doing their homework, Molly was thinking about her mom Maudie and how she died having her. Molly had been thinking on this for a while and decided that she would go back in time to save her which means she would be alive. When Miri figured out what Molly was trying to do she watched her very carefully. One-day Miri woke up and called Molly and she didn’t answer so she looked on the top bunk and saw she wasn’t there. Then Miri went downstairs to see if Molly was at the breakfast table but she wasn’t there either so, Miri started to get worried then BOOM! Magic took Miri to her sister. When Miri saw Molly, she was glad to see her, then both sisters took off to go to see Flo which was the sister’s Auntie. On the way there they saw their brothers that had snuck out of the house and into the woods. Miri and Molly jumped from bush to bush listening to Flo’s conversation with a man to see if they knew the location of Maudie. Molly and Miri went to 1864. During this time the Northerners and the Southerners were battling in the Civil War. As Molly and Miri were walking they ran into the battle of Cedar Creek. Robbie and Ray had caught up with Molly and Miri. They were walking and came upon a hurt soldier that was bossed around by Nick Carter, a rebel soldier. Nick Carter and his buddy Charley McDonough were outlaws following Col. John Singleton Mosby. As the sisters separated from Ray and Robbie, Ray and Robbie ran upon Nick and Charley. Nick and Charley were on their horse with their rifles. Nick started talking with the brothers and tried to get them to go with him and they refused so Nick hit Robbie with the butt of his rifle. When Molly realized that her brothers were captured she made a plan to go after them. She grabbed a pitchfork from one of the hay stacks and followed the soldiers. When Miri and Molly caught up to them, Molly threw the pitchfork at Nick to make him let go of Ray and Robbie. After grabbing Ray and Robbie they ran to the closest house and saw Flo and the same man from earlier. After talking with Molly’s grandma May, she told Miri and Molly that they were meant to be sisters. Magic took the children to present time to be with their family. Ray and Robbie got the girls a kitten named cookie and their mom was happy they were all back.
I chose this book because my mom made me but, after reading I’m glad she did because this book was very interesting to me. I picked my rating 4 ½ because it was good but it had a couple of parts that I wasn’t interested in. The best part I liked was when Miri and Molly went into time to fight off Nick Carter to save their brothers from their capture. I also like when Miri and Molly told their mom that Ray and Robbie were home and the boys knew they were in trouble. The boys also had to do an extra report that they didn’t want to do because they skipped class. Ray and Robbie knew they had to write the report to raise their grade and because their mom was expecting to see the new grade. ( )

Fun time travel for kids. I liked the first one best, but this had some interesting problems to address like where is the portal and what do you do when your siblings accidentally get caught up in the magic. I like the family teamwork. ( )