Product Description

Martin Conway comes from a family filled with heroes and disgraces. His grandfather was a statesman who worked at the US Embassy in London during WWII. His father is an alcoholic who left his family. His sister is an overachieving Ivy League graduate. And Martin? Martin is stuck in between--floundering.

But during the summer after 7th grade, Martin meets a boy who will change his life forever. Jimmy Harker appears one night with a deceptively simple question: Will you help?

Where did this boy come from, with his strange accent and urgent request? Is he a dream? It's the most vivid dream Martin's ever had. And he meets Jimmy again and again--but how can his dreams be set in London during the Blitz? How can he see his own grandather, standing outside the Embassy? How can he wake up with a head full of people and facts and events that he certainly didn't know when he went to sleep--but which turn out to be verifiably real?

The people and the scenes Martin witnesses have a profound effect on him. They become almost more real to him than his waking companions. And he begins to believe that maybe he can help Jimmy. Or maybe that he must help Jimmy, precisely because all logic and reason argue against it.

This is a truly remarkable and deeply affecting novel about fathers and sons, heroes and scapegoats. About finding a way to live with faith and honor and integrity. And about having an answer to the question: What did you do to help?


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1958454 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-26
• Released on: 2006-09-26
• Formats: Audiobook, Unabridged
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 5.49" h x 1.00" w x 5.44" l, .36 pounds
• Binding: Audio CD

From School Library Journal
Grade 6–9—Martin Conway, unhappy with school and with his pointless life, is left a radio by his grandmother when she dies. In a new spin on time travel, the seventh grader uses a vintage, World War II Philco radio to travel back in time to war-torn, 1940s London. He suddenly finds that he's having vivid dreams about a British boy named Jimmy who urges him to do his part. Martin, confused and unsure about what he is supposed to do, travels with Jimmy back to the London Blitz. Jimmy tragically dies during a German air raid, and Martin finally understands his mission and his life becomes full of purpose and meaning. Superbly narrated by actor Robertson Dean (The Young and the Restless), Edward Bloor's novel (Knopf, 2006) will interest young adult readers with its deft blend of history and science fiction.—Larry Cooperman, Seminole High School, Sanford, FL
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
Martin Conway, who numbly attends an upscale private school, is pulled out of his ennui by a strange call from his grandmother right before her death. His curiosity increases when the art deco radio she bequeaths him introduces him to Jimmy, a figure from the past who asks for his help. Martin is introduced to a maze of mysterious parallels and alternating times and places, all of which are kept straight through the strong narration of Robertson Dean. Dean shifts accents easily as Martin time-travels to Jimmy's world, Blitz-filled London of 1940. Dean's resonant tones have a haunting quality for a tale that has otherworldly elements and a dream-like mission that may bring redemption to several characters. S.W. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
Gr. 6-9. When an old radio transports Martin back in time to London during the Blitz, the seventh-grader makes startling discoveries that fuel twin quests: one to expose the unflattering truth behind two World War II heroes casting long shadows in his life, and the other to answer a young Londoner's eerie pleas for help. Every bit as provocative and open-ended as Bloor's Crusader (1999), this genre-defying novel incorporates mysticism steeped in Martin's Catholic faith and a present-day trip to London that connects two troubled father-son relationships across the decades. Bloor demands much of his readers, especially concerning the diplomatic issues leading to U.S. involvement in World War II, and many will have questions about where the facts end and invention begins. Ambitious yet unwieldy, this may work best as a fictional supplement in history classrooms, where it will open discussions of both the slippery qualities of historical truth ("Who decides what the real history of a time is?") and the nature of genuine heroism. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved