The Secret Spiral (review)

When ten-year-old Flor Bernoulli stops into her neighborhood pie shop to pick up dessert, she instead gets a glimpse into the future and finds herself enmeshed in an intergalactic dilemma that may change the space-time continuum forever. Dr. Pi, the owner and baker of the Sky-High Pie Shop, has always been a bit odd, but when he starts talking to Flor about a magical spiral, the curve of time, and a precious fire, she’s convinced he’s officially lost it. Shortly after leaving his shop, however, she encounters Mr. It and Mr. Bit, two beings from another planet, in a meeting that was predicted by Dr. Pi. Soon she is traveling with the two alien brothers, along with her neighbor, the thin Ms. Plump, in a magical flying hat to Paris, where she will meet her estranged father and learn the secret history of her famous mathematically inclined family and their connection to the Spiral. The climactic scene, however, fails to deliver any serious revelations and instead clumsily shifts gears to focus on family dynamics, making an already messy plot even more convoluted. The cloyingly quirky names of the characters and the play on time and space add a bit of whimsy, but still, these fantasy elements feel utterly derivative and never hang together as a solid framework for the action. The true villain doesn’t even show up until the final pages, making the majority of this story no more than a tedious setup. Direct time travel enthusiasts instead to L’Engle’s classics or to John Stephens’ recent The Emerald Atlas (BCCB 5/11).