Time Spinner, by Roy Apps, for Timeslip Tuesday

Time Spinner, by Roy Apps (1990), is a fun one for younger readers (8-10 year olds).  Rosemary is a kid living out in the far reaches of the solar system about 100 years from now.  It's a clean, safe, sanitized existence, and with no other kids her age around, and nothing much to occupy her time (homework doesn't count) she is bored our of her mine.  The one thing she finds interesting is when her Gran shows her the illicit treasures from the Elizabethan Age of Earth (meaning Elizabeth II, not I) that she keeps hidden.  But when her parents come home unexpectedly to find Rosemary holding a glass bottle, disaster happens--she drops it and it breaks.  And then to make things worth, her parents destroy everything else in the secret stash, even the picture of Rosemary's great-grandmother--unsanitary relics are forbidden.

So Rosemary decides to break an even more stringent rule.  She's allowed to take the family space travel vehicle out for short spins, but definitely not allowed to use its time travel feature.  But she has to get another picture of her gran, and maybe another wonderful glass bottle as well....so she sets off for an English school in the late 20th century.

She is in for a ton of culture shock, and this makes for entertaining reading!  Fortunately she meets a friendly boy, who does his best to keep her out of trouble, and despite many missteps and culture shocks, she has the time of her life, making it home safely with a bottle, though not the picture.....It's a really solid portrayal of modern life seen through the eyes of a kid from a sterile space existence future, and tasted through her mouth that has never eaten plant or animal (all her other senses are in for rude awakenings of their own--I think this is perhaps the most sensory time travel book I've ever read.....)

I gave it four stars over on Goodreads primarily because it's a great one for the target audience, who will find it very entertaining. It didn't have quite enough heft to it for non-target audience me to really love it (it's only 117 pages of generous font), but I found it a fun fast read.