This is a magical story of time-travel and of friendship between eleven year old Piper, who has just moved into a new house, and Rosie, who lived in the same house fifty years earlier. It’s totally charming, and exactly the sort of story I adored growing up.

Sometimes that makes me wish I could send the book in question back in time to my younger self and while I have no doubt that my younger self would have loved this, I appreciated its references to things that my younger self didn’t know about. Not just 2013 things, like iPods, but things like Joan Baez and A Wrinkle in Time.

I also appreciated how, even though I’ve read other books about children travelling back and forth in time, I couldn’t predict how this one would end. That was very satisfying.

“What’s all that got to do with the popcorn ball? I guess maybe I’ll make the popcorn ball later.”
“But I saw it yesterday,” I objected.
“It’s time travel!” she said impatiently. “Do you expect things to happen in order?”
Maybe I was a little slow to get it, but in my defense, I’d never time-traveled before, and I’d sure never heard of anyone travelling anywhere (or anywhen) by means of popcorn ball. ( )