An Escape in Time

Sally Nicholls's An Escape in Time is a funny time-slip adventure for 8 year olds about a magic mirror that just won't stay shut.

What happens

Ruby and Alex Pilgrim are back at Aunt Joanna's house for half-term. Ruby keeps glaring at the big gold mirror in the hallway, willing it to open. (It's taken them into the past twice before, and she misses it more than she'll admit.)

Then it does. A very grand French lady and her terrified son appear in the glass and vanish. A young governess reaches straight through the mirror, grabs the children and pulls them into 1795.

It's the same house, only brand new. There are no lights, no radiators and no downstairs loo. The grand lady turns out to be a countess who's just escaped the revolution in France, and she has nowhere to live.

So Alex and Ruby decide the mirror has given them a job. They've got to find this family a home.

Standing in their way is Isabella, who's engaged to the kind, whiskery vicar who owns the house. She snaps at the little maid, calls Ruby indecent and wants to know whether the countess has any jewels. The children's verdict is instant. This woman is trouble!

What makes it such fun is how real the past feels. You're right there with Ruby as she's laced into a corset and told that girls in 1795 don't wear knickers. There's a bullet in Alex's partridge at dinner. The toilet is a wooden hut in the yard with torn-up newspaper on a nail. Would your reader cope? Probably not, and that's half the joke.

Ruby is loud, bossy and brilliant. Alex is quieter and notices things, and the two of them squabble just like real brothers and sisters do.

There's some danger too. The men chasing the countess carry muskets and there's plenty of talk about the guillotine. The opening keeps it all light, though.

This is Alex and Ruby's third trip through the mirror, and the story mentions how the earlier ones turned out. If your reader is new to the Pilgrims, it's best to start at the beginning with A Chase in Time.

What to read next

If they love the idea of a house that opens onto its own past, The Secret Lake is a lovely next step. Stella and Tom find a tunnel in their London garden that takes them back to the same house and gardens, long before they lived there.