Cute little fantasy!

Penelope’s parents keep her on a very strict schedule that occupies nearly every minute of every day.  During the little time she has to herself, she like to visit an older woman near her home to have tea.  One day she finds that her mother had neglected to fill out the daily schedule that she must follow, and Penelope suddenly finds that she has a gigantic hole in her schedule.  She visits her friend and mysteriously falls into the hole of her schedule.  She finds that she is in a world that is obsessed by time with absolutely no time for “moodling.” She must confront the evil Chronos as he tries to control everything in his world.

The story is reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland and of Momo. It is a delightful little tale of a time-pressured, overextended little girl who desperately wants some time just to think and imagine how the world would be if she only had time.  I recommend its purchase for readers grades three through eight.  This is a first novel for the author, and, while I would expect others to follow, it is nice to read a stand-alone story and not have to wait for another book to come for me to feel satisfied with the ending.