The Left Behinds and the iPhone That Saved George Washington by David Potter (review)

Narrator Mel, along with Bev and Brandon, is stuck at his hoity-toity boarding school over winter break. A teacher offers them diversions in the form of field trips, but their jaunt to a reenactment of Washington’s crossing of the Delaware goes wildly wrong when their phones transport them back to the time of the actual event and they discover the stone cold dead body of George Washington in a stable. The kids now have several urgent items on their agenda—recharge their phones for the return trip, should they ever figure out how to make it, and reverse the fate of the future Father of Our Country. First things first—track down Benjamin Franklin and beg him to find a way to recharge the phones. If anyone in the eighteenth century can appreciate the technology, it’s Franklin, and after much explanation and some fiddling with Leyden jars, the kids are good to go. Next, they make a trip slightly further into the past to waylay Washington’s assassins and cross the Delaware while acting as the general’s bodyguards. Finally, they transport back, only to find that the iTime app that’s caused the trouble has been engineered by some nefarious guy still on the loose. Sequel, anyone? Let’s hope so, because the concept of bringing an iPhone into the past is just too cool to stop at one episode. Mel is one very funny narrator, as dependent on his phone (“my precious, my precious”) as Potter’s tween and teen readers, and the in-character reactions of the Big Names in History to twenty-first century technology are cleverly drawn. This is Magic Tree House all grown up, and kids who once loved that time travel conceit will be delighted all over gain.