Reviewed by Emily-Jane Hills Orford for Readers' Favorite
It’s amazing where imagination can take you. Timothy Mean certainly has a very good imagination. With his imagination and his creative ingenuity, he can create a time machine out of cardboard boxes and lots of glue. But is it a time machine for real? Why not join Timothy Mean for an entire week and see where his imagination and his time travel machine will take you. How about to a pirate ship? Or a medieval castle under siege? Or to the moon for the first lunar landing? Timothy Mean even went back in time to when his parents were young and in school and he played some pranks on them, making his Daddy cry. That wasn’t very nice. But, then again, he is Timothy Mean.
William AE Ford’s picture book story, Timothy Mean and the Time Machine, is a clever journey through time and all in rhyme. With colorful illustrations, the author and Timothy take the reader on an exciting adventure, one day at a time. Each day is a new place, a new time, a new adventure. Not only does the reader enjoy these jaunts through time, but they will learn some things about pirates and the first landing on the moon. The rhyming verse will certainly have the reader rhyming his or her way through the rest of the day. The power of imagination is a wonderful gift and Timothy displays his imaginative powers with great panache. This is a fun and educational read, beautifully presented.