Time Twins
Sally Astridge and Arne Norlin
Mākaro Press
pub: 2017

14 October 2020

When Tamati’s grandfather tells him about the magic of your time twin and how you can magically travel to the person who was born on the exact same day, exact same hour, exact same minute and exact same second as you, he finds himself eager to find out more about his own twin. When he ‘travels’ to visit his, he finds himself in a young girl’s bedroom in a large city.

As Tamati and Astrid get to know each other they develop a close bond. As they talk, this bond grows stronger and stronger. They start to instinctively know when they need each other’s help and sense when something’s wrong.

Time Twins brings up the subjects of racism and bullying in the school environment. When Astrid becomes friends with a girl who is constantly bullied by the other children, Astrid shows true friendship and great courage. It is because of this new friendship Astrid starts to get bullied too. One of those times Tamati appears in Astrid’s class as another student was about to attack her and fends them off. Little does she know that only she could see him and to everyone else she was the one attacking. Although she is strong and gets the bullying dealt with.

Tamati, on the other hand, has some great successes and fends off bullying, becoming a hero to some. Astrid struggles with ‘travelling’ to Tamati, It’s only when he is the one who is in grave danger Astrid gets a weird feeling and knows she must.

In most books I’ve read I only really understand the main five or six characters’ characteristics and personality traits, but with Time Twins the authors have made it so I understand almost all the characters mentioned.

There aren’t any huge twists but there are some great plot lines that I wasn’t expecting and they have kept me thinking.

I don’t normally like books written from two people’s perspectives as it can get confusing and lost but that didn’t happen this time. The authors did a great job keeping this clear by using names rather than pronouns more regularly at the start of each swap.

I really enjoyed finding this new magic and it opened up my eyes about what it was like to be bullied in that way. As I have never experienced anything like what happened to Astrid or Henrietta I cannot imagine what they were going through.

Time Twins is one of those books you are too tired to keep reading but you just have to know how it ends.

Have you ever read one of those books that you have to make yourself read? Well, this is not one of them I had to make myself stop reading it and it has definitely been recommended to my whole class.

I recommend this book to any avid reader around the ages of 12 to 15 who loves a little magic and believes in the magic of friendship.

– Jessica Steele, age 12, lives in Auckland