Running Out Of Time was the first Margaret Peterson Haddix novel I picked up. Actually I was supposed to be alphabetizing and shelving in Intermediate which at the time I considered a safe place to really get work done. I wasn’t interested in Intermediate books. The plots were too thin and the characters too flat. Plus they were too short. I could finish an intermediate novel between dinner and Must See TV. Intermediate held mostly nostalgia for me because that’s where all the Black Stallion books were shelved, but I wasn’t going to be reading those when I needed to be shelving.

I stumbled across this book with a picture of a girl in jeans and a T-shirt running and glanced at the back noticing that it said something about the year being 1840. Intrigued I opened and read a page.

Jessie Keyser is 13. The year is 1840. She lives in Clifton, Indiana. So far it sounds like Little House On the Prairie. I put it down and went back to work. Bothered by the girl in jeans on the cover I picked it up again.

It seems like Clifton, Indiana in 1840 but there are some weird things. There are places the kids are forbidden to go that seem to make no sense and then there’s the town doctor who is know to tell patients all they can do it get bed rest while handing them little boxes of pills under the desk. Odd, but I really needed to get some work done. So I went back to shelving until I tried to put away something on the shelf immediately above Running Out Of Time and found an alpha order disaster that took 5 minutes to untangle and, well, since I was right there… Kids have been getting sick in Clifton. Some of them very sick. The adults are angry about something. Then Jessie’s mother draws her aside. She has something to tell her and it’s not the facts of life.

It is not 1840, it’s more like 1995. A wealthy man looking to set up a historical reenactment only he wanted it to be real. He wanted his ‘actors’ to live full time like they would have then. Like 1900 House, forever. Frightened by the shape of things to come a few couples signed on. They went into the reenactment village and left the modern world behind. The man running the thing promised that if something were to happen, he would come in with modern medicine. Well, there’s a diptheria outbreak and the backer is refusing to help. So Jessie’s mom is taking matters into her own hands. She hands her daughter appropriate clothing for modern day (she’d stand out in her dress and bonnet), gives her the advice she can and sends her out. Naturally bad stuff happens. Jessie has been living in 1840, she doesn’t know how to handle the modern world. Fast food? What’s that? In addition, she’s been living in a small town where she knows everyone and everyone knows her. She has never seen a stranger. It’s bad.

This book completely changed my view of intermediate novels. The plot was more involved and more realistic than I expected. It wasn’t heavy and didactic. Sure, there’s some cautions about strangers, but it’s part of the plot. The writing wasn’t clunky or second rate. It held my attention, much to the detriment of the shelving I was supposed to be doing. I’ve read a lot of science fiction and really was primed for some kind of time travel story, but I wasn’t disappointed when I didn’t get it because this twist was so unique.

It was short. I finished it in the course of a couple of hour long lunch breaks. Kind of fun to finish off a book that fast. It also gave me a few titles I could recommend in that section. And it just added to my interest in YA lit that I’ve had since a college class I took. So really the bad thing is a good thing in the right light.

Running Out Of Time started me on my Intermediate bender. There’s a lot of really good stuff out there once you start looking. This is one of those things. Reluctant readers will enjoy this one. Probably so will you.


Recommended: Yes