Review by Julia Pirie

Liz Kessler’s Philippa Fisher and Emily Windsnap series are both very popular. A Year Without Autumn is her first standalone title for 9-12 year olds. In it Kessler breaks slightly new ground while revisiting the themes of friendship and change. With its pink cover and female protagonist it’s probably not ‘a boys’ book’ – though you could have fun getting students to write a version using male central characters.

Jenni Fisher, her brother and parents holiday in Riverside Village at the same time every year as does her best friend, Autumn Leonard, with her brother and parents. It’s a reassuring tradition and one that the girls look forward to. There is no reason that this year should be any different. Then Jenni finds herself trapped in an inexplicable time shift. It seems she’s gone forward a year. She discovers that a tragedy in the Leonard family has caused lasting damage both to her friendship with Autumn and to the relationships within both families. The further she travels into the future, the worse the outlook appears.

In a well-plotted, gripping story – told in the dramatic present – the reader follows Jenni as she struggles with the complications of the future while trying to find her way back into the past in an attempt to alter what triggered the tragedy.  Although there’s nothing particularly original about her or the characters she meets, Jenni’s voice generally rings true for the 21st century reader. Girls her age will recognise elements of their own friendships and preoccupations in her relationship with Autumn and the other characters in the story. The inter-generation conflicts the book explores will also be familiar while a sub-plot which explores a teenage romance also adversely affected by passing time might lend the book extra appeal for the older end of the target audience. The ending is satisfyingly surprising and challenges the reader to contemplate the power they have over their own destinies.

If they enjoy this, more experienced readers (of both sexes) might be encouraged to enjoy try more challenging texts such as Alison Uttley’s A Traveller in Time or Philippa Pearce’s Tom’s Midnight Garden . The rest will be happy to know that Kessler plans more standalone titles involving ‘some kind of time slip’,