Children's timeslip novels by Australian authors

And the times they slip back to...

For me the timeslip novel is a perfect fusion, my reading idyll, being a combination of realism, speculative and historical fiction. Last month I used my reading of Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister (a bestselling timeslip for adults) as a springboard to discuss how I came to love timeslips as a child and some of their common features, in a piece called A Matter of Time (I also produced it as a podcast episode). Here’s a brief excerpt from that piece.

Time-slips often start out with a main character who already feels displaced. By whimsical device, memory-based illusion, or other psychological phenomenon, they become truly out of place by going to another time, or times, and there the reckoning with their own existence makes progress (sometimes while they are living someone else’s life). Eventually they find their way back home – that is, the correct time and state of mind – and are left with a powerful secret.

This week, as I added two brand new timeslip novels by Australian authors to my TBR, I had the happy thought that the sub-genre is having a comeback in this part of the world.

And so the ex-bookseller in me decided that a listicle was in order.

So here are 11 timeslip novels for children, plus the times they slip back to, locations where known or if outside of Australia, published as far back as 2009 but more than half coming out from 2020 onwards, and all written by Australian authors (with the exception of the half of Elsewhere Girls that was written by me).

1. Tumbleglass, Kate Constable: back to 1999 and then to other time periods including the 1900s, 1940s and 1970s (published 2023)

2. The Boy Who Stepped Through Time, Anna Ciddor: back to Ancient Rome, same goes for the standalone sequel A Message Through Time (published 2021)

3. Running With Ivan, Suzanne Leal: back to wartime Europe (published 2023)

4. Ming & Flo, Jackie French: the first in the series slips back to 1898 Australia, the second slips back to Belgium during WW1 (published 2022)

5. Elsewhere Girls, Nova Weetman & Emily Gale: one character slips back to 1908 Sydney while the 1908 character slips forwards to 2021 (published 2021)

6. The Secret Library of Hummingbird House, Juliane Negri: back to the 1970s (published 2020)

7. When The Lyrebird Calls, Kim Kane: back to the 1900s (published 2016)

8. Heroes of the Secret Underground, Susanne Gervay: back to Budapest 1944 (published 2021)

9. The Locket of Dreams, Belinda Murrell: back to 1858 (published 2015)

10. Inheritance, Carole Wilkinson: back to the colonial period of Australia (published 2018)

11. The Puzzle Ring, Kate Forsyth: back to the 1500s, Scotland (published 2009)

If you have any favourite timeslip novels, or you’re writing one, let me know in the comments.

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Emily Gale has worked in the children’s book industry for 25 years in various roles: in-house editor, consultant to a literary agent, children’s book buyer, reviewer, freelance manuscript assessor, and as a writer-in-residence in a high school library. Emily’s writing includes the Young Adult novels Girl, Aloud (2009), Steal My Sunshine (2013) and I Am Out With Lanterns (2018). For late primary/early high school readers she has written The Other Side of Summer (2016; a companion novel to I Am Out With Lanterns) and Aussie Stem Stars: Gisela Kaplan (2021). She wrote Eliza Boom’s Diary books 1 & 2 in 2014, for younger readers. Her latest novels are Elsewhere Girls (2021), with Nova Weetman, and The Goodbye Year (2022).