Maya's Korean grandmother has come to live with her and her busy mother, and though Halmunee is loosing her memory, she still has brightly lucid moments in the kitchen, making delicious food. The food is more than just tasty, though--it transports Maya and her grandmother back in time, to watch as young Halmunee and her family, back in Korea, eat the very same thing! Turns out, Maya's family has a gift for timeslipping through food, and though they can only watch as spectators, it's still wonderful. And Maya is thrilled to learn more about her family; her mother has never wanted to talk about it, and Maya is pining to learn more about her absent father.
It was a pleasant start to the story, with simple time slipping tourism, but things get more intense when Maya meets a boy who's also a time slipper. As the time travel becomes more than just episodes of watching her family, she realizes she's caught up in a series on interconnected mysteries, hinging on the secrets of her missing father and her mother's strained relationship with Halmunee.
And by the end, it becomes powerful and truly magical in the best sort of twisting timeness as Maya learns the truths her mother kept from her. (Twisty enough that even a relatively strong time travel reader like me had to stop and think hard about what was happening and when....not a complaint, becuase I like this sort of thing!)
Maya's somewhat strained relationship with her best friend, Jada give this nice middle grade realism, and I loved how this tension was resolved (with the help of cookies!); I appreciated, as many middle grade readers probably will, that it was casually mentioned that Jada has a crush on another girl. And as an added bonus for young foodies, there are recipes included.
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