How to Build a Time Machine

Children's Literature

It is an old truism that "time marches on." Yet, what really is time and how have people measured it in the past? In How to Build a Time Machine, Hazel Richardson offers younger readers some perspectives on the latest scientific thought about a concept that can be paradoxical in its implications. Richardson presents several key researchers who, in the past, presented theories about time and potential travel back into the past. The author discusses scientific theories related to black holes and wormtrails that are theorized as time portals. Space is also dedicated to the bizarre ways in which a time traveler could influence history and create a circumstance wherein his own existence could be blotted out by interference in history. Along the way, Richardson offers fun activities that afford readers an opportunity to create timepieces similar to those used in ancient Egypt, Rome and Greece. All in all, this book will provide some lighthearted and more serious glimpses of time and the elements that make up this amorphous yet all encompassing concept. Part of the "How To" series. 2001, Franklin Watts, $14.00 and $4.95. Ages 9 to 13. Reviewer: Greg M. Romaneck