Pigsticks and Harold Lost in Time! by Alex Milway

For this week's Timeslip Tuesday, one for younger readers--Pigsticks and Harold Lost in Time! by Alex Milway (Candlewick, 2017).  This was the first time I met this pig and hamster duo, and I enjoyed the fun of their adventures in time!

It starts with Pigsticks trying to build a space ship, so that he can win the Best Invention competition.  With an hour to go, the space ship is nowhere near finished, and he is understandably worried (so relatable!).  When Harold stops by to see how it's going, he notices a strange machine in the workshop that Pigsticks had never paid much attention to. Turns out it's a time machine, invented by Pigsticks' Great Aunt Ada.  Immediately Pigsticks knows how to get his space ship working--travel to future for future tech!  He persuades the reluctant Harold to join him on the machine, pulls the rusty lever....and they are off! 

They land far back in the past, in the era of the fearsome dinopigs, and disaster strikes--the lever breaks.  A stick gets them out of there, but isn't enough for full functionality.  So they time hop through history, at last crashing through the roof of a Viking longhouse.  There Harold's famous cake, that he happened to have brought with him, saves the day--the Viking ax they get in exchange for the recipe is strong enough to bring them home...and then send Harold on a perilous journey all by himself!

All ends well (though oddly Harold comes back with a beard....).

It's fun and light, great for young newly independent readers, especially those interested in the past and in cake, which many emergent readers are.   A good "first time machine" book, although not a great representation of the past--Cleopatra was much later than the pyramids.