The Best-Kept Secret, by Emily Rodda, for Timeslip Tuesday

On this anxious election day, worrying about what the future holds, I read a rather sweetly hopeful timeslip book--The Best-Kept Secret, by Emily Rodda (1988).

Joanna, a young girl in an ordinary small town, is a child beginning to realize she is leaving childhood behind.  Her parents want to move to a bigger house, and she's appalled by the idea of leaving her home, her safe place.  And though she doesn't quite realize it, she and her best friend, Cecelia, are growing apart--Cecelia is a rather stolid child who divides people into "nice" vs "weird."  And Joanna is wondering if she herself is more on the weird side (which the reader, or at least me, realizes clearly is the better, more interesting sort of person).

When a carousel appear out of nowhere in a vacant lot in town one night, the townsfolk are drawn to its music.  The two girls want to ride, but only a few people are able to gain access.  Joanna is one of the few, and Cecilia, holding on to each other, makes it to the carousel with her.  The strange old woman running it identifys Joanna as a proper rider, but lets Cecilia on board too, though noting she'll not get anything out of it.  And off they go on their horses, with a strange assortment of other riders (I like how the horses matched the characters!)

The Carousel takes them seven years into the future.  There the riders as ghosts, observing but unable to interact  as they explore their future town.  (Cecelia isn't able to participate, stuck in a dream on her horse, admiring how pretty the two of them look in the carosel's mirrors...).   Some riders have powerful, meaningful experiences seeing their future selves.  And there's one who concentrates on recording winning lottery numbers and the like.  But nothing much happens to Joanna...until right at the end, when a bullied little boy flees toward the carousel, and without thinking, she reaches towards him and brings him on board.  

This breaks the Carousel, stranding the passengers, and posing a dilemma--do they risk not making it home by pushing back toward the future again to drop off the little boy in his own time?  The majority votes yes,  and Joanna is given ten minutes to take the kid home....leading her toward the own bit of the future that was the reason she became a rider, because his home is hers as well....

And though the riders don't remember their experience clearly when they eventually get back to their own time, the feeling and dreams and deeply buried knowings remain, helping them be their best selves.  (I did wonder what the greedy man took home with him though--it wasn't at all clear to me why he deserved to be a rider....)

It's a simple story, good for younger readers but not for the typical middle grade reader of today.  But for sensitive kids it probably still works (which is almost me but not quite...).  I like Joanna lots, and I think I would have liked the book lots back in the day, but am not sure it would have been one of the books that burned itself into my mind--it's awfully nice, but could have pushed harder and been even more.

Today I got my master list of timeslip books reviewed here updated, though I am a little perturbed that I have 20 more timeslip Tuesday posts than I do books reviewed, so something is wrong somewhere....didn't have enough enthusiasm to check all 501 posts to see which I missed. But in any even, I'll try to be on top of things going forward and add this one right now!