Monday 27 February 2017

Running on Empty by R. M. Clark (Young adult, 10E/10E)


 December 2016, Indigo Sea Press, 120 pages, Ebook, Review copy 

Book summary
After getting a video camera for her fourteenth birthday, Kasey Madrid enters film contest and chooses her town's 300th anniversary celebration as a subject. All is well until the town's time capsule is unearthed empty, prompting Kasey to investigate. Things get even stranger when she begins to see someone in her camera no one else can see.

That “someone” turns out to be Marion Gibson, the town's former historian, who went into a coma-like state when the time capsule was buried and whose memories are now trapped in time. Kasey researches the town historians and reveals their 300 year-old secret: a wooden chest that gives them the ability to see other people's memories and visit the past. She also finds that Marion's successor, the real town historian, is missing.

Using her film footage, Kasey discovers the chest is passed on to each new historian every generation through time capsules. When the chest is stolen, Kasey and her camera go back to save Marion, find the identity of the next historian and solve the mystery of the empty time capsule

Nayu's thoughts 
This is possibly my favourite book by Clark to date! I loved the whole missing capsule because it instantly gave me a theory about what would happen in the story. I was kind of right too! Kasey is highly likable, with her inquisitive mind and her trusty friend Paula. I've read the first book of their adventures so it felt like I was coming home to friend. They take all the extraordinary occurrences in their strife, not freaking out too much and are determined to find out the truth. 

I liked how adults are woven into the storyline -by this I mean some have a positive influence on Kasey, they help her out in situations which in other books would lead to the main characters breaking the law a little to succeed. This is ok in fiction but isn't the best role model for readers, so Kasey having help continues the positive mentality towards adults in the tale. Not all hand out cookies, a couple are distinctly troublesome, but Kasey and her friends find a way to deal with those individuals. 

I loved the supernatural element of the tale, it's a clever concept, works well and I hope will feature in another book in the series! It would be so cool to have extra help like that, although it does come with great responsibility. As with al of Clark's other books there's a happy ending! 

 Suggested read

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