2024 Blogging A to Z Challenge: Time Travel

Time travel, for me, brings together two very different genres and, if done correctly, is a wonderful thing! Time travel often combines the science of science fiction with the history of historical fiction. And as someone who isn’t necessarily a big science fiction reader, this is one way I’ll get behind it! Time travel stories can also encourage kids to learn more about a specific time period, a famous historical figure, or just have fun (because sometimes reading doesn’t have to be anything more than just fun)!

From chapter books to young adult novels, today’s list has a little bit for everyone. Whether you’re heading back in time to meet a famous historical figure or traveling through time and space a little differently, these are adventurous stories that fit this challenge perfectly.

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my links, at no extra cost to you. Please read the full disclosure for more information.

2024 Blogging A to Z Challenge: Time Travel

Abraham Lincoln, Pro Wrestler by Steve Sheinkin

When Abraham Lincoln overhears a classroom of kids say “history is boring,” he decides to teach them a lesson. Lincoln escapes from 1860―to pursue his dream of becoming a professional wrestler! Now siblings Doc and Abby have to convince Lincoln to go back to Springfield, Illinois, and accept the presidency . . . before everything spins out of control!

The Art Of The Swap by Kristine Carlson Asselin and Jen Malone

Hannah Jordan lives in a museum…well, sort of. She is the daughter of the caretaker for mansion-turned-museum The Elms in Newport, Rhode Island. Hannah’s captivated by stories of The Elms’s original occupants, especially Maggie Dunlap, the tween heiress subject of a painting that went missing during a legendary art heist in 1905.

But when a mysterious mirror allows Hannah and Maggie to switch places in time, suddenly Hannah is racing to stop the heist from happening, while Maggie gets an introduction to iPhones, soccer (which girls can play!), and freedoms like exploring without supervision. Not to mention the best invention of all: sweatpants (so long, corsets!).

As the hours tick away toward the art heist, something’s not adding up. Can the girls work together against time—and across it—to set things right? Or will their temporary swap become a permanent trade?

Dinosaurs Before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne

Where did the tree house come from?

Before Jack and Annie can find out, the mysterious tree house whisks them to the prehistoric past. Now they have to figure out how to get home. Can they do it before dark…or will they become a dinosaur’s dinner?

Finn and the Time-Traveling Pajamas by Michael Buckley

When Finn is saved from the Time Rangers by an older version of himself, it comes with a catch. Old Man Finn needs Finn and his friends, Lincoln and Julep, to help him win battles he lost years ago against the Paradox, a terrible creatures obsessed with revenge against Finn’s father. If they succeed, he promises to tell Finn where his father is. He even gives them a pair of time-traveling pajamas to help them with their quest.

There’s only one problem. The pajamas malfunction almost immediately. Along the way the kids avoid being eaten by sabretooths, shot by revolutionary war soldiers, and start a war with a town full of holograms, all in an effort to fix the jammies.

Just when their goal is in sight, Julep gets sick. Only…it doesn’t seem like she’s sick. It seems like she’s changing. The adventure may cost Finn more than an old pair of pajamas–it may cost him his friends!

The Legend of Sam Miracle by N. D. Wilson

Sam Miracle’s life is made up of dreams that come to him when he’s wide awake. They take him to another place and time, where he’s a courageous, legendary hero instead of a foster kid with two bad arms that can barely move. Sometimes these dreams feel so real, they seem like forgotten memories. And sometimes they make him believe that his arms might come alive again.

But Sam is about to discover that the world he knows and the world he imagines are separated by one thing: time. And that separation is only an illusion. The laws of time can be bent and shifted by people with special magic that allows them to travel through the past, present, and future. One of these “time walkers” is out to protect Sam so that he can accept his greatest destiny, and another is out to kill him so that a prophecy will never be fulfilled. However, it’s an adventurous girl named Glory and two peculiar snakes who show Sam the way through the dark paths of yesterday to help him make sure there will be a tomorrow for every last person on earth.

The Magic in Changing Your Stars by Leah Henderson

Eleven-year-old Ailey Benjamin Lane, a gifted dancer, is certain that he’ll land the role of the Scarecrow in his school’s production of The Wiz. But when a classmate overshadows him at auditions, a deflated Ailey confides in his Grampa that he is going to give up dancing. Not ready to give up on Ailey, Grampa shares a story from his past.

As a young boy, Grampa gave up his dreams of tap dancing even after the unofficial Mayor of Harlem, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, encouraged him to perform. Robinson also gifted him a special pair of tap shoes. A curious Ailey tries on the shoes and is instantly transported back to 1930s Harlem. There he meets a young street tap dancer and realizes it’s his grandfather. Ailey thinks he can help the 12-year-old version of his Grampa face his fears, but he must tread lightly—if Ailey changes the past, can it affect his future, and will he ever make his way home?

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive. 

On the Blue Comet by Rosemary Wells

In the wake of the Crash of 1929, Oscar Ogilvie’s life is changed forever. His dad has to sell their house and cherished model trains and head west in search of work, leaving Oscar lonely and miserable in the care of his aunt. Then he meets a mysterious drifter and witnesses a crime so stunning it catapults him on an incredible train journey from coast to coast, from one decade to another. Filled with suspense and peppered with witty encounters with Hollywood stars and other bigwigs of history, this captivating novel resonates with warmth, humor, and the true magic of a timeless adventure.

The Portal by Kathryn Lasky

Life used to be great for Rose: full of friends, a loving mom, and a growing fashion blog.

But when her mother dies in a car crash, Rose is sent away to live with astrange grandmother she hardly knows and forced to attend a new school wheremean girls ridicule her at every turn.

The only place Rose finds refuge is in her grandmother’s greenhouse. But onenight she sees a strange light glowing from within it. She goes to investigate…and finds herself transported back five hundred years to Hatfield Palace, whereshe becomes servant and confidant of the banished princess Elizabeth, daughterof King Henry VIII.

Rose soon discovers something else amazing—a locketwith two mysterious images inside it, both clues to her own past.Could the greenhouse portal offer answers to the mysteries of her family…and their secrets?

Rescue on the Oregon Trail by Kate Messner

Ranger has been trained as a search-and-rescue dog, but can’t officially pass the test because he’s always getting distracted by squirrels during exercises. One day, he finds a mysterious first aid kit in the garden and is transported to the year 1850, where he meets a young boy named Sam Abbott. Sam’s family is migrating west on the Oregon Trail, and soon after Ranger arrives he helps the boy save his little sister. Ranger thinks his job is done, but the Oregon Trail can be dangerous, and the Abbotts need Ranger’s help more than they realize!

Time Sight by Lynne Jonnell

Will’s mother is in danger overseas, and his father must find her, so Will and his little brother are packed off to relatives in Scotland. Will feels useless. He can’t save his mother. He can’t help his father. And when he tries to amuse his brother on the plane ride, he can’t even locate the images in Jamie’s book―the hidden pictures that everyone else can see. Once at the family’s ancestral castle, though, Will tries again. And as he delicately adjusts his focus, suddenly his eyes tune in to a different visual frequency―the past.

Looking back five hundred years is interesting . . . at first. But when Jamie impulsively leaps through the opening in time, Will and his cousin Nan must follow, into a past so dangerous that Will isn’t sure how he will get everyone safely home.

Time Traveling with a Hamster by Ross Welford

My dad died twice. Once when he was thirty-nine and again four years later, when he was twelve. On his twelfth birthday, Al Chaudhury receives a letter from his dead father. It directs him to the bunker of their old house, where Al finds a time machine (an ancient computer and a tin bucket). The letter also outlines a mission: travel back to 1984 and prevent the go-kart accident that will eventually take his father’s life. But as Al soon discovers, whizzing back thirty years requires not only imagination and courage, but also lying to your mom, stealing a moped, and setting your school on fire—oh, and keeping your pet hamster safe.

2024 is my ninth year participating in the Blogging A to Z Challenge. This year, I chose as my theme: Adventurous Readers with a focus on providing book lists focused on all types of adventures for readers from birth to teens. Each letter of the alphabet will focus on different sub-genres or age groups and will provide twelve titles of books. This theme coincides well with the summer reading theme for many libraries which is “Adventure Begins at Your Library” and no matter what type of books the kids in your life like, there is sure to be something they’ll find interesting over the course of the month. Stop by daily to check out the new books and other posts that I’ll be sharing in April.