A Long Way from Home

by Laura Schaefer

Overview

Twelve-year-old Abby has a lot to worry about: Climate change. The news. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. And now moving to Florida for her mom's new job at an aerospace company.

The Space Coast is nothing like home, and her mom’s relentlessly positive attitude isn’t helping Abby settle in.

Then Abby meets two boys, Adam and Bix, who tell her they’re a long way from home and need her help. Abby discovers that they’re from the future and that in their time, the problems of the present have been solved. She strikes a deal with Adam and Bix: She’ll help them—if they let her come to the future with them.

But as they race to complete the boys’ mission, Abby starts to wonder if they’re hiding something from her. Is the future really as perfect as they say? And will Abby be making the right choice if she abandons her own time?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781728416700
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/04/2022
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 7.75(h) x 0.95(d)
Lexile:	720L (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 11 Years

About the Author

Laura Schaefer is the author of The Teashop Girls, The Secret Ingredient, and Littler Women: A Modern Retelling. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Laura currently lives in Windermere, Florida, with her husband and daughter, where she enjoys visiting theme parks and watching rocket launches from her front yard. Visit her online at lauraschaeferwriter.com and twitter.com/teashopgirl.

Editorial Reviews

"[A] thought-provoking sci-fi novel . . . The tension of the boys' quest will keep readers invested . . . [b]ut Abby's situation is equally engrossing."—The Horn Book Magazine

From the Publisher

2022-08-17
Twelve-year-old Abby is full of anxiety about the state of the world.

Abby’s physicist mother has taken a job at SpaceNow in Florida, and the family has relocated from Pennsylvania, much to Abby’s displeasure. Worse, her mother keeps telling Abby to apply herself and look for the positive, and Abby does not feel heard. Then she meets two unusual looking boys: Adam, who is about her age, and Bix, 9. They don’t seem to belong to this world—and they don’t. As the story unfolds, Abby learns that the two have traveled through a time vortex and need to find Adam’s sister, Vanessa, before the future is irrevocably changed. While the premise is intriguing, the novel is occasionally strained in its presentation, with plot devices being introduced that seem to be there simply to get the story from point to point rather than growing it naturally. Abby, who narrates in first-person present tense, has a voice that seesaws among believable snarky tween, some strangely adult-sounding passages, and a detached narratorial voice not unlike a tour guide’s. Although readers are told Abby is very smart, there is no evidence of that integrated into the plot, and the same limited characterization is used for her oft-mentioned anxiety, in this case through frequent references to her stomach. While the theme is worthy—don’t give up—the delivery is uneven. Abby and her family present White; a prominent secondary character is Latine.

A well-intentioned story that doesn’t quite deliver. (Science fiction. 9-13)

Kirkus Reviews