THE TIME MUSEUM

Both deadly dangers and exciting research opportunities await science-mad Delia Bean once she stumbles into a museum with portals to any time and place on Earth.

Time and space open up for Delia after she discovers that her beloved uncle Lyndon is in fact a time traveler from 51st-century Hoboken and in charge of the Earth Time Museum—a truly massive institution charged with preserving our entire planet’s past and future. Invited to try out for a museum internship, Delia plunges into a whirlwind course of study and training with five other young competitors from various eras, then joins them in three on-site tests: a Cretaceous scavenger hunt; a trip to the ancient library of Alexandria to pick its most wondrous holding (“a Homeric book of practical jokes!” “That’s a contender!”); and finally an expedition 1,000 years into the future to help deal with a worrisome plague of anachronistic “time discrepancies.” Loux uses only minimal variations in hue to signal his mostly light-skinned cast’s diverse origins, but his fluid lines and bright colors make the action (of which there is plenty) easy to follow. By the end his young ensemble, having weathered challenges ranging from their own rivalries to T. Rexes and a time rift that threatens to annihilate London, is a bonded team ready and eager for new adventures.

A first rate kickoff: fresh, fast, and funny.