Caught

It's funny, I feel like I've wavered a lot on this series. Sometimes it seems way too young for me, with underdeveloped stories and writing that is "good enough" for fifth graders but not really all that good. This book still had moments, even entire chapters, of that. But it also does things that many young audience books do not. The author is really well-researched about history, and the stories are didactic, but in a way that is compelling and engaging. This one in particular brought not just education about the past, but so much compassion. The ins and outs of time travel are not the important part; it's really about humanizing people in history, making them real. I do also like the random social commentary handled awkwardly, about sexism and racial issues. It's not perfectly "PC" but since when does that make for great storytelling anyway? I also like that the main characters have a religion. It doesn't feel forced down my throat as a reader at all; it is hardly mentioned. But it gives them more flavor/texture as characters. So often in kid lit religion is sort of taboo, but it is integrated in here in a natural and non-proselytizing way. I should have known I could trust this author based on her other work. She might have gone into "churn em out" mode a bit with this series, but her talents and values still shine through.