Time Lions and the Chrono-Loop by Martin Seneviratne and Krystal Sutherland

The first volume of the Time Lions series sets up a wild ride through history and mistaken attempts at changing it.

Time Lions and the Chrono-Loop by Martin Seneviratne and Krystal Sutherland.  Nancy Paulson Books (PRH), 2025. 261 pages.

• Reading Level: Middle grades, ages 10-12
• Recommended for: ages 10-15

The Amarasinghe twins, Pearl and Patrick, have no way of fitting into their 6th-form class at school. Not that Pearl would ever admit it. She knows she’s a genius and someday soon the world will know it too. What does she care if the other girls don’t invite her to their pool parties? Not when she’s created the world’s first time travel machine! A clandestine trip to the British museum is all she needs to steal King Tut’s burial ring and whisk them back to ancient Egypt.

Patrick, on the other hand, isn’t the mad-scientist type or the adventurous type. He’d rather curl up on a comfortable chaise in silk pajamas and read Tacitus. 

In spite of Patrick’s preferences, Pearl is always dragging him off on risky adventures because his encyclopedic knowledge of history comes in handy when time-traveling. And he must admit it’s pretty cool to see King Tut in the flesh. Still, he should have known better than to kill that mosquito that was supposed to pass on malaria to the Pharaoh. That small mishap leads to their arrest as soon as they return to the 21st century – not by the police, but by agents of TIME, or The Interdimensional Misconduct Enquiry, whose mission is to correct time-travel mistakes and let history flow as it’s supposed to.

The existence of TIME is a shock, but even worse for Pearl is learning that she’s not the first: people have been jumping time and changing history for the last 200 years, or ever since time travel was discovered by an English officer on duty in Sri Lanka. The twins have transgressed and must pay the penalty, or else join TIME in its mission. Pearl resists; she “hated being told what to do, and even more hated the idea of her work going unseen.” So after failing TIME’s qualifying test, the twins are strictly forbidden to time travel again. But when a rival organization tempts them with the fame Pearl longs for, what’s to stop her? 

The perils of changing history is a familiar theme in time-travel literature, but a brisk pace and humorous touches make Time Lions stand out. Pearl’s genius inventions stretch credulity as far as it can go, and we hear a little too much about Patrick’s cowardice and silk pj’s, but the twins learn some good lessons, such as, “It’s not about you. It’s about the world and everyone in it” . . . “We all have to work to make the present we have a better place, rather than trying to magic everything to be perfect” . . . “If we have no history to learn from, I think people will just end up doing the same bad stuff over and over again.” Doomed to repeat it, in other words. That’s a lesson one can’t learn too soon.

Considerations:

• Language: Four misuses of God’s name.

Bottom Line: A romp through time with historical facts scattered along the imaginative plot.

Related Reading at Redeemed Reader:

• Reviews: Three time-travel novels we reviewed this year: Echo Nova (for teens), The Unlikely Intrusion of Adams Klein (for middle grades), and Moonleapers (for middle grades)
• Reviews: What about turning back the clock to correct a personal mistake? See our review of Operation Do-Over.
• Resource: Got a voracious tween reader? Check out our Series Fiction for Tweens Booklist.

You may buy Time Lions and the Chrono-Loop from Amazon.