05/11/2020
A tween travels to a parallel Earth via snow globe in Cummins’s entertaining debut novel. Sarah Reisende, 12, lives in the Austrian countryside with her mother and grandparents; her father left when she was two. At a local festival, Sarah trails a mischievous feline to a strange snow globe shop, where she discovers that the globes open portals to other worlds. When Sarah breaks the one connecting her to Vienna, she fears she’s stuck. Finding a photo and a note mentioning her father and a mysterious world called Elohi, Sarah shakes the respective globe, which whisks her away to an alternate Earth ruled by the malevolent human-tiger warrior Malvine and his carnivorous snake-plant hybrid Bog Hunters. Luckily, an Elohian family takes Sarah in, and their children, Elias and Mag Zogel, pledge to help investigate the Galactic Snow Globe Travelers and find Sarah a way home. At times, Sarah’s narration scans as formal (“Vienna’s bustling activity and graceful architecture echoed a lineage rooted in culture and gentility”), but readers will enjoy her adventures in this creative, accessible introduction to multiverse concepts, the first in a series. Ages 10–up. (Self-published)
