Magic in the Mix

August 1, 2014
The time-traveling adventures of Molly and Miri Gill continue, with even higher stakes. Molly and Miri are the only members of their family who know Molly was not always Miri's twin. In The Magic Half (2008), Miri saved Molly from a life of abuse in 1935, bringing Molly to Miri's own time and family, where, according to Molly's magically knowledgeable grandmother, she was supposed to be born. Now both Molly and Miri possess double sets of memories: Each remembers her life before they were twins as well as her life as a twin. This bothers Molly, and when their magic house sends them back to 1918, she is sure it is to prevent her birth mother from having her-thereby preventing her mother's death-but they are returned to the present abruptly. When they try to go back to 1918, they end up in the American Civil War, and when their twin brothers later unwittingly travel through time-in Civil War re-enactment dress, no less-and are taken prisoner, it will take the girls' combined wit, courage and cleverness to save their brothers from certain death and use magic to "[set] things right." Barrows examines many of the previously unanswered, difficult questions of time travel but does not answer all mysteries, paving the way for a possible third book.If another adventure is to come, readers will hope it won't take another six years to arrive. (Fantasy. 8-12)

COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

June 1, 2014

Gr 3-6-Time travel is tricky. Barrows, though, proves she knows the way around the paradoxes that can stymie science fiction writers. In this companion to The Magic Half (Bloomsbury, 2009), everything happens for a reason and in the right order. Readers will be happy with the Gill family's return, complete with its unique sets of twins, the magic house, and its time portals in this sequel that has double the adventure and four times the excitement. In the first book, Miri Gill accidentally traveled back to 1935 and rescued Molly from an abusive extended family. Now living as Miri's twin-with history (at least in their time line) rewritten-Molly fears that perhaps she wasn't supposed to have this happy life and should go back in time to stop her parents from meeting. With some present-day remodeling going on, though, their house has new portals opening up unexpectedly. The girls do travel back to find Molly's mother in 1918 and, in a fateful move through a different portal, to the 1860s and the Civil War with their older brothers stumbling back, too, as Union soldiers in Confederate territory. The plot is fast paced and thrilling until the very end. Some pieces of unfinished business-and a time-traveling cat-will have fans hoping this isn't the last trip with the Gill family.-Marie Drucker, Malverne Public Library, NY

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.