The Lost Children by Carolyn Cohagan

Josephine’s life with her rich father is very lonely and quiet since her mother died. Her father doesn’t pay any attention to her at all –he doesn’t even speak to her! And to make matters worse, he is responsible for a new town law that says everyone must wear gloves all the time. At school the kids hate Josephine because they hate wearing gloves, so she doesn’t have any friends either. One day while searching the old shed in the back of her huge house, Josephine meets a boy from a different time, but before she can ask him anything, he disappears. Josephine decides to investigate the old shed to see if she can find any clues, and while she is searching, she falls through the shed wall into a dark, scary basement. When she lands on the basement floor, the first thing she hears is someone barking, “No, no that’s all wrong!.....I’m going to throw you down those cellar stairs,” and “you ant brained speck of fly dung! Into the cellar!” Josephine doesn’t know yet that she has landed in a different time zone and a different world –a dangerous world filled with horrible creatures and a more horrible master. Review by Loretta Eysie