cover image Websters' Leap

Websters' Leap

Eileen Dunlop. Holiday House, $15.95 (168pp) ISBN 978-0-8234-1193-1

Dunlop (Finn's Island) leaves no loose ends in this imaginative, well-wrought fantasy about an estranged brother and sister who go back in time-or do they?-to right a wrong and patch up their relationship. Once again the unwilling participant in her divorced parents' annual summer exchange of offspring, Jill Weaver, 11, is stuck with her historian father in an isolated Scottish castle, while her older brother Tad is with Mum in London. Bored senseless by anything historical, Jill reluctantly views a video that Dad and Tad made about Castle Gryffe, at the end of which she is shocked to see herself and Tad in 16th-century garb. A string of strange events culminate in Jill's being swept back to the 16th century, where she and Tad are servants of Lord and Lady Romanes. Various nefarious schemes imperil Lady Romanes (``Kate''), and it is up to Jill and Tad to save their gentle patroness before an impending visit by Mary, Queen of Scots. Fans of historical fiction will revel in Dunlop's panoramic vision of 16th-century Scottish life in all its splendor and squalor; she puts a neat and satisfying spin on the time-travel conceit to boot. Ages 9-12. (Oct.)