THE HAT DIARIES

Ryan takes his girlfriend on junkets into the past and discovers some of his own family’s tragic history in this middle volume in the series.

Wheeling in a Portal to the past with a 60-minute time limit, Haruni sends her 14-year-old magic hat–wearing protagonist off on a series of Adventures. Ryan runs with the bulls in Pamplona, sings mariachi in Mexico, and gets a close-up view of the first moon landing. Then, along with his popular new girlfriend, Violet, he witnesses the coronation of King Charles III and the storming of the Bastille, joins Blackbeard’s crew for a pirate battle, and rambles through war-torn Aachen in 1944. Aside perhaps from the Mexican venture, which relies heavily on the trope of poor but happy people sacrificing for others, these outings rarely lead to personal growth, nor do they make for particularly vivid set pieces. The author expends little effort on incorporating authentic historical details or fitting her travelers into each new setting—they arrive properly dressed and magically able to speak the language, for example. Subplots involving Ryan’s fence-mending with a repentant bully and some rough waters in his relationship with Violet feel shoehorned in, as do the flashback extracts from his grandpa’s diary. The trips do finally force the improbably secretive elder into explaining the dangers of time travel that he’s been darkly alluding to, and one such comes into play after much foreshadowing in a cliffhanger ending. The central cast reads white.

Episodic and lacking in tension.