The World Between Blinks (The World Between Blinks #1)

Two heroes head on a quest in this series starter with a strong focus on family and shared memories. After 12-year-old Marisol Beruna’s adventure-loving Nana dies, she travels from her home in La Paz to Nana’s South Carolina beach house, where the family is gathering to prepare the home for sale. Marisol hopes to use her uncanny ability—locating missing objects—to somehow afford the house’s upkeep and keep it in the family. When she and her favorite cousin, Jake, also 12, find a treasure map that their Nana drew, they follow it down the beach, only to wind up trapped in an adjacent realm filled with lost entities from their own world—cities such as Atlantis, historical figures such as Amelia Earhart, and treasures such as the fabled Amber Room. In their effort to return home, they must recover a magical book before they’re stuck there forever. Kaufman (the Aurora Cycle series) and Graudin (Invictus) take full advantage of the book’s inventive premise, introducing readers to a host of exciting historical oddities and concepts, including the Library of Alex-andria, the Tasmanian Tiger, and Queen Nefertiti, all of which are detailed further in supplementary notes. Ages 8–12. [em]Agent: Tracey Adams, Adams Literary. (Jan.) [/em]