Synopsis: Gareth’s definitely no ordinary cat. For one thing, he can talk. For another, he’s got the power to travel through time. And the instant he tells this to Jason, the two of them are in ancient Egypt, on the first of nine amazing adventures that Jason will never forget. -Goodreads

Review:  Time Cat is about a boy and his cat Gareth, who uses his nine lives to travel back through history. I always recalled this book as being the title that really got me into history and while I’m still sure it did that, I now know that a lot of what I learned wasn’t that accurate, but still a lot of fun.

The main character Jason is fairly bland, but he serves as a great host in order for the reader to imagine themselves on fantastic adventures through time with a cat named Gareth. Jason rarely thinks of home or offers insight, instead he is along for the ride and enjoying every minute of it, even when getting himself into some pretty tricky situations.

Some sections (specifically, the Isle Of Man) seem to focus more on teacher the reader/Jason a lesson about themselves. It comes off as a little forced and I doubt it would fly with many modern readers. Another thing every single chapter seems to focus on is the awesomeness of cats, which I actually thought was pretty funny as if a cat was leading a time travel adventure, that would absolutely be the focus.

Egypt, Rome, Japan and Ireland all make appearances in this book, plus a few more, so this story serves as a great gateway to quite a few different branches of history. While the choice of Egypt was a pretty obvious choice, it was probably one of my favorite of the short stories.

Overall, this is a really fun story and Time Cat will have a place on my shelf for a long time. Still, it doesn’t appear that this history-centric novel is going to stand the test of time needed to make it a classic.

What are your favorite history based middle grade books?

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