The Time Castaways Trilogy by Liesl Shurtliff: Time Castaways the Mona Lisa Key (Book 1); Time Castaways the Obsidian Compass (Book 2); Time Castaways the Forbidden Lock (Book 3)).

Rating: Not for me

Reading level: Middle School

This series is basically a less-dark, time travel version of the Harry Potter Series, but with fictional metaphysical science in lieu of the wizardry and spells. The main character, Mateo, is an adopted son trying to discover his true identity and purpose; the family loves each other and will sacrifice for each other; Mateo has a boy and girl sidekick (his siblings) who often quarrel playfully.

Things I liked:

• Focus on family. Mateo’s family fights for each other as they adventure through time to try to mend their family’s lives, discover the truth about their past, and prevent an evil ex-boyfriend time-traveling villain from splitting the mother from the group for his own interests. It sounds really far fetched, and it is, but the characters are likable and there are a lot of clever connections throughout that keep the reader enticed.  

Possible Concerns:

• Weird, spiritually suggestive comments. (Spoiler alert!) It starts out seeming to just be about a nerd who likes science, but eventually there is ancient Chinese astrology attached to the time travel, statements that self-actualization is possible (without any reference to Christ; they call it “self-peace”), characters breaking themselves up into little pieces and putting themselves back together again; ancient stargazers sacrificing their infant son by sending him across time, and biblical references are used for evil (e.g., the villain hurts his sidekick and scornfully states, “an eye for an eye.”). There are issues of destiny but not with any element of Gospel truth.
• Kids Disobeying Parents’ Instructions. The kids seize adventures after the parents continually instruct them not to do anything or follow any strangers or travel through time, etc., without them. But the kids keep finding reasons to disobey those parental orders.
• Kids keep secrets from the parents.  In fact, everyone has secrets that they keep, “because they didn’t want to burden the others with it” etc., but keeping secrets like that is just a bad practice in any family, and I wouldn’t want my impressionable kids thinking that’s the norm for how kids should operate.
• Poetry instead of prayer. The crew listens attentively as captain says a Haiku before supper in lieu of a prayer.
• Cussing. At one point the son calls his mom “badass.”
• Adoption. The main character is adopted and I believe it is handled really well (in fact a theme of the book is how he belongs in the family and they stick together); but there is one point in Book 3 when his brother gets angry at him and points out that a threat to their family ancestry doesn’t affect him physically. So if there is any tension about adoption in your family, this might be sensitive as the sibling is basically pointing out that Mateo isn’t blood related to the family.
• Church attendance. At one point a man is described as having “nature is his church” and he goes into the woods while his wife takes the kids to church.
• Peril. There is a bit of violence and it accelerates in the final book, but not too much (certainly not as much as in the Harry Potter Series) and it is usually not ending in death. 

Bottom line: If you liked Harry Potter, (or if you’re close but not quite ready for Harry Potter in your family and looking for a book series to entertain in the meantime), this might be a good warm up for your kiddo.  It is lighter, but still has a lot of the great characters and intricate connections, the family mystery, and the suspense. On the other hand, this book just doesn’t have many clear spiritual parallels as Harry Potter. As for me, there is enough that is pointing away from God that I’d rather find something better.