From School Library Journal
Grade 4-6-Eighth-grader Eddy Hall and his older sister Eleanor plan to use their time-traveling bicycle to improve the past and avoid hassles in the future, until several misadventures show them that time is too powerful for even an enchanted bike to change. Readers may recognize Eddy and Eleanor as the protagonists in The Diamond in the Window (1973) and four sequels including the much honored The Fledgling (1980, both HarperCollins). The Time Bike retains the charmingly old-fashioned, somewhat breathless style of the previous books, although the Concord, MA, setting is updated with references to computers, mountain bikes, and the millennium. Unfortunately, in this title, the siblings' magical adventures and their experiences with family and community members are not always clearly linked or fully developed, which are the great strengths of the earlier books, and readers unfamiliar with those titles will find the secondary characters unconvincing. Although fans of the previous entries will find The Time Bike more enjoyable than newcomers, it is still the weakest book in an otherwise strong series.
Beth Wright, Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, VT Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Library Binding
edition.
From Kirkus Reviews
After 16 years of mostly mysteries for adults, Langton resurrects the Concord cast of
Fragile Flag (1984) and its predecessors for a charming, if patchwork, time-travel tale. The expensive new bike that Eddy receives for his birthday is stolen, then replaced by an old-fashioned one from his royal Indian uncle. Meanwhile, local bank president Ralph Q. Preek has ordered Uncle Freddy and Aunt Alex to produce a vanished deed or vacate their rambling old house, and Eddy's older sister Eleanor is having fantods waiting for an in-crowd party invitation that never arrives. Once Eddy discovers that the old bicycle is a time machine, he, Eleanor, and his hamfisted friend Oliver each hare off into the past on ill-conceived adventures. Eleanor, for instance, wheels back to 1938 in a vain effort to save the life of movie star Derek Alabaster. Eddy, pushing off for Julius Caesar's time, ends up on a deserted beach after realizing too late that ancient Rome is far from Massachusetts in space as well as time. These parallel plot lines either dovetail in hyperconvenient fashion--a piece of paper that Eleanor just happens to pick up from the ground in 1938 turns out to be the missing deed--or trail away unresolved, creating a succession of loosely linked episodes but no unified story. Still, the major characters are easy to like (or, in Preek's case, despise), and the magical events are folded into the fabric of everyday life so neatly that they seem to belong there.
(Fiction. 10-12) --
Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
