The iPhone that Saved George Washington by Potter - ESSENTIAL

Potter, David The iPhone that Saved George Washington (The Left Behinds #1), 336 p. Crown (Random House), 2015.  $17.  Violence: PG (deaths, war, not graphic). 

Mel, Bev, and Brandon have been left at their boarding school for the Christmas holidays and their teacher is doing his best to entertain them.  When he takes the kids to a reenactment of Washington crossing the Delaware, the kids follow a strange man into a basement and find themselves transported to a stable where they find the dead body of George Washington hidden in a stable.  What?  Once they convince themselves that they really have traveled back in time, they also have to figure out how to fix history.  Because if Washington is dead, the whole American Revolution thing won’t happen.  After they save the country, maybe they can also figure out how to get home.  How do you charge a cell phone in the 1700’s anyway? Oh that’s right – you need Benjamin Franklin for that.

Yeah! SO much fun.  Potter does a great job of bringing in the time travel without creating too many paradoxes and confusing the timelines and the reader.  The history is fun to read and feels authentic, explaining the importance of certain things happening without being boring.  There will be more in this series, so prepare yourselves.  

MS – ESSENTIAL.  Cindy, Library Teacher