“When this started, we were regular seventh graders, living in a regular town in suburban New Jersey, worrying about the regular dumb stuff”. So shares Alice, one of the six kids who stars in Ann and Ben Brashares’ Westfallen — a gripping thriller that sees two sets of 12- year-olds communicate through a radio and wind up sharing a dialogue (and a Mars bar!) between 1944 and 2023.
While still reeling with shock (“When the world has shifted on its axis, and you’ve just watched reality turn to gobbledygook, it’s hard to sit down and eat dinner”), the kids are excited about their counterparts’ daily lives. For example, the kids of 1944 are blown away by this thing called Google, while the 2023-ers use Google-sourced information to help stop a sweet shop from burning down in 1944. Trouble is, while meddling in historic events might prevent short-term problems, and even halt destruction and death, the ricocheting longer-term repercussions of the butterfly effect could be catastrophic, as turns out to be the case here, when the kids’ actions lead to the Nazis winning the war. Somewhat more high stakes than Back to the Future.
The pace and page-turning pull ramp up further still as both sets of kids embark on a courageous race against time to halt an atrocious course of history. Propelled by peril and urgency, Westfallen is also often funny, thanks to the splendid cast of characters and their wildly inventive action movie-inspired scheming to put things right, and to be on the right side of history.
We didn't mean to change the past. Now we have to win the war. A stunning 'what if?' story by a bestselling author about two groups of 12-year-olds - one in World War Two, one in the present day.
Henry, Frances and Lukas are neighbours, and they used to be best friends. But in middle school Frances got emo, Lukas went to private school and Henry just felt left behind. When they come together again for the funeral of a pet gerbil, the three ex-friends make a mind-blowing discovery: a radio, buried in Henry's garden, that allows them to talk to another group of three kids in the same town in New Jersey, USA ... in the same backyard ... eighty years in the past.
The kids in 1944 want to know about the future: are there laser guns? Flying cars? Jetpacks, at least? Most of all, they want to know about the outcome of the world war that their dad and brothers are fighting in. Though Henry is cautious - he's seen movies about what happens when you disrupt the fabric of time - soon the present-day kids are sending their new friends on a mission to rescue a doomed sweet shop. What harm could that do? But one change leads to another, and the six friends accidentally change the course of history in the worst way imaginable: the Nazis winning the war. Now it's up to the friends to change it back.
Co-author Ann Brashares is a New York Times bestseller for The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, here writing with her fellow children's author and brother Ben for the first time.
‘This propulsive thriller includes well-paced cuts between times that keep the pages turning ... compulsively readable’ Kirkus
‘The diverse cast's crack ling chemistry brings humour and heart to the pulse-pounding plot’ - Publishers Weekly
‘An engaging and fast-paced thriller’ Wall Street Journal ‘Young readers will be caught up in the chilling events as seen through the eyes of six friends, but so will adult readers. [...] A page-turner with a cliff-hanger ending ... Highly recommended.’ - School Library Journal
Author
About Ann Brashares, Ben Brashares
Ann Brashares is a writer and mother of four living in New York City. She is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series as well as several other novels. She helped her youngest brother, Ben, with his shoes (and the debilitating lumps in his socks) every morning before school until he learned to tie his own shoes … around eighth grade.
Ben Brashares lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with his wife and three children. He's the author of Being Edie Is Hard Today and The Great Whipplethorp Bug Collection. He holds an MFA in creative writing and has worked at and written for several magazines, including Rolling Stone, Men's Journal and Entertainment Weekly. As an adult, Ben gets no help whatsoever tying his shoes. But he still has weird pets. And he still gets lumps in his socks.
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