A Year Without Autumn

Every summer 12-year-old Jenni looks forward to her family’s vacation at Riverside Village—it means spending the days with her buoyant and optimistic best friend, Autumn, and her family. But this year, a fateful elevator trip somehow transports Jenni one year into the future, and much has changed. It turns out that just hours after Jenni “left” the previous summer, Autumn’s younger brother, Mikey, was thrown from a horse and has been in a coma ever since, his family struggling to keep it together. As Jenni gradually pieces together what happened to her (and gets increasingly dire glimpses of the future through subsequent trips in the elevator), she works to return to the present and possibly avert Mikey’s accident. Kessler (the Emily Windsnap series) isn’t interested in the mechanics of time travel or even “why” Jenni’s time slip has occurred (as Jenni reflects, “What matters is the fact that it has”). Rather, it’s a vehicle, occasionally heavy-handed but effective, for her story’s empowering message: “Don’t just accept the life you’re given.... Question everything. Always attempt the impossible.” Ages 9–12. (Oct.)