KEP WESTGUARD

Thirteen-year-old Kep Westguard is a time-traveling teen in this first installment of Schnabel’s middle-grade SF series.

It’s 1777 in Saratoga in the colony of New York, and the Revolutionary War is raging. Kep is one of a few young teens sent back in time by the KRONOS company to keep modern-day America safe. His great-aunt Annie leads the mission at KRONOS and warns Kep that he can’t take for granted the many rights he enjoys in the 21st century. Her brother-in-law, Fox, who has a vendetta against the United States government for confiscating his family’s estate, already journeyed into the past to wreak havoc, and Kep is sent back to thwart any threats to the success of the Revolution. However, he’s not allowed to take any modern-day weapons or technologies with him. Along the way, he encounters the formerly enslaved Banneker, Mary, and Finn McGee as well as the German Baroness Von Riedesel. This first installment in Schnabel’s series is a page-turner that young history buffs will enjoy. Kep is relatable and fun to travel alongside, as there’s an effortless ease to his manner. The book ably intersperses real-life historical events and people, such as the baroness, without slowing the pace. That said, there are places in the book where the dialogue feels a bit out of step. Since Kep has time traveled before, and the KRONOS company is well versed in the past, one would assume that they would have trained him well on blending in; instead, Kep’s speech is sometimes distractingly modern but only rarely questioned, as when he says “wow, that was a shocker.” In addition, the time-travel technology is only sketchily explained.

An uneven time-travel romp with a patriotic punch.