Out of Time - Book Review

Author Mark Golding’s chapter book, Out of Time, is a fiction masterpiece for young middle schoolers. Golding is a school teacher who lives in England. During the pandemic lockdown, his overactive imagination, his love of adventure and science fiction, and the available time created the perfect trifecta for his extremely creative mind.

Out of Time is the perfect illustrated book for young, independent readers. It stars Joe Jackson, an inquisitive and adventurous 12-year-old who lives in a small English town. Joe’s curiosity leads him to meet with Maxelon, a Tamian from the planet  Proxima Centauri b. With the alien comes high-tech gadgets, like organa-tech seeds (they actually grow computers from the seeds) and time travel. Maxelon could also make himself invisible. As if the lure of space travel and the interaction with an alien is enticing enough, the reader learns that Max is trying to find and destroy an extra-terrestrial villain, Dardan. Who is this villain? Dardan is a Wolfian, an enemy of the Tamians who has been grounded on Earth in the 21st century while trying to take over the world.

Joe becomes immersed in time travel. A visit to the Egyptian pyramids leads Joe and Max to time travel to the Cretaceous Period.  What reader cannot resist dinosaurs? A T-rex attacks the treehouse fortress of a stranded Professor and his family. They join Joe and Max in their hunt for Dardan and a return home. A side-time-travel trip to the Roman world reveals flying machines, legionaries, and medieval knights with swords. The future King Arthur is another character that readers will be familiar with and interested in his story.

Inadvertently, dinosaurs have been sent into the modern world. Some attack and eat people; others can be tamed and ridden like a flying horse. What reader wouldn’t like to vicariously experience these adventures!

Out of Time is an appropriate title for this charming book as the story involves time travel out of the present and into the past as well as the future. Also, the heroes are almost “out of time” before disaster strikes again and again. This fun book will keep adult readers’ attention and encourage laughter at the antics of the heroes and their unimaginable adventures that don’t seem to end. Children will be mesmerized by the continuing adventures and how Joe and his friends respond with courage and determination to get back to their real world. Will they remember their escapades, or will they attribute their memories to dreams? Readers will hope there is a sequel.