Diego and the Rangers of the Vastlantic by Armand Baltazar - ESSENTIAL

Baltazar, Armand Diego and the Rangers of the Vastlantic (Timeless #1), 607 pages.  Katherine Tegen (HarperCollins), 2017.  $20.  

Language: PG (10 swears, 0 ‘f’); Mature Content: G; Violence: PG (some battles).

After the scientists tore a hole in the space-time continuum, the world has resettled with people, animals, and scenery from all the world’s history mixed together and electrical devices don’t work.  While the fighting has stopped for the most part, there are still those who want everything to go back to where it was and they will stop at nothing to accomplish that – even kidnap the world’s best scientists, including Diego’s father.  Together with his best friend Petey, Lily, who is raised as a proper Steam-Time girl and her best friend Paige, they take off in pursuit of Diego’s and Lily’s fathers.  They are picked up by what they think are pirates, but it turns out they have found a secret organization determined to stop the Aeternum - those who would reorganize the world – killing off all the children who have been born in this new era.

Such a poor description for such a wonderful book!  Bathazar’s years working with Disney shine through in his story and his illustrations.  At first I was alarmed at how heavy the book was because of the special paper for the brilliant illustrations.  I find this a perfect melding of text and pictures!  I can’t imagine that this won’t be a movie – I’m betting Balthazar already has the screenplay written!  Even though younger kids will definitely love this, I can see high school students enjoying it too.

EL, MS, HS – ESSENTIAL.  Cindy, Library Teacher.