This fast-paced fantasy, dusted with humor, rife with danger and bulging with bizarre characters, delivers wisdom about time use, loyalty, bravery and integrity. Alex loses his grandfather’s stopwatch and notices that time has begun to slip through his fingers. After a chance encounter in the library, Alex learns that to stabilize time, he must retrieve the watch from the moon (where all lost items go) when it is blue. Alex and his dog Zeke are zipped to the moon aboard a rickety and rat-filled space ship. Accompanied by two other seekers, they discover many odd places, such as the Gallery of Ar that houses unfinished art and the chest of wasted talents. They also encounter loathsome creatures such as the Time Eaters; like grim reapers in look and deed, they suck time and nearly kill Zeke. Before the job is done, they must face off with time’s greatest and greediest foe. Among the knowledge Alex gleans along the way, he learns that, “Time isn’t wasted if you’re doing what you love best,” and reading this is absolutely time well spent. (Fiction. 8-12)
