Alternative Worlds
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The Green Futures of Tycho
William Sleator
Starscape, Oct 2005, $5.99, 128 pp.
ISBN: 0765362389
In the backyard of his family home, eleven-year-old Tycho Tithonus decided to make a vegetable garden, but on his first dig into the dirt he finds a weird egg-shaped and sized object. Tinkering he discovers he has found a miniature time machine that enables him to travel through time and return home. He sees the device as a means of pulling stunts on his older siblings (sixteen years old Ludwig, fifteen years old Tamara, and thirteen years old Leonardo) who are always telling him as the youngest what to do.
As he enjoys pranking his brothers and sister, Tycho begins to notice subtle changes when he returns to his present. These “modifications” seem nastier with every trek in time. He suddenly sees a darker world, but worse he confronts the most frightening being he has ever met, Tycho the adult in a future that is so bleak he fears this will come true unless he can undo all the damage he caused.
Using time travel as a device to look closely at family dynamics and interactions, THE GREEN FUTURES OF TYCHO is a fabulous tale that upper elementary school children will fully appreciate because many will commiserate with the youthful hero. The key is Tycho seems so genuine that initially readers will want to be in his sneakers pulling off pranks against older members of his family without any “repercussions”; I am an adult and would not mind pulling a stunt or two. That changes once the consequences begin to surface. Science fiction fans will enjoy this reprint of a William Sleator 1981 classic.
William Sleator
Starscape, Oct 2005, $5.99, 128 pp.
ISBN: 0765362389
In the backyard of his family home, eleven-year-old Tycho Tithonus decided to make a vegetable garden, but on his first dig into the dirt he finds a weird egg-shaped and sized object. Tinkering he discovers he has found a miniature time machine that enables him to travel through time and return home. He sees the device as a means of pulling stunts on his older siblings (sixteen years old Ludwig, fifteen years old Tamara, and thirteen years old Leonardo) who are always telling him as the youngest what to do.
As he enjoys pranking his brothers and sister, Tycho begins to notice subtle changes when he returns to his present. These “modifications” seem nastier with every trek in time. He suddenly sees a darker world, but worse he confronts the most frightening being he has ever met, Tycho the adult in a future that is so bleak he fears this will come true unless he can undo all the damage he caused.
Using time travel as a device to look closely at family dynamics and interactions, THE GREEN FUTURES OF TYCHO is a fabulous tale that upper elementary school children will fully appreciate because many will commiserate with the youthful hero. The key is Tycho seems so genuine that initially readers will want to be in his sneakers pulling off pranks against older members of his family without any “repercussions”; I am an adult and would not mind pulling a stunt or two. That changes once the consequences begin to surface. Science fiction fans will enjoy this reprint of a William Sleator 1981 classic.
