TIME SWEEP

A clever, diverting time warp story in which Laurie, a newcomer to present-day Sydney, goes to sleep in his bed and wakes up in 1862 London--a trick he repeats on several nights during a lonely summer. Taking him around London is Frank Kilderbee the poor road-crossing sweeper, a contrasting twelve-year-old who benefits from Laurie's 20th-century largesse--ballpoint pens--and teams up with his literate friend to foil a 19th-century robbery. Also involved (though back in Sydney) is Laurie's friend Clare, an ultra-bright modern girl with a passion for Victorian costume who manages, while Laurie's out of town, to sneak into his bed and back into the past for a while too. Author Weldrick threads bits of English history and Victoriana throughout her story, plays lightly with her now-and-then incongruities, and leaves her protagonists, properly fed and entertained, in good time. Jaunty and enterprising.