Why is Professor Childermass acting so strange? Johnny Dixon and his friend Fergie decide to sneak over to the professor's house to investigate. Wheat they find is wilder than anything they could imagined, for the professor leads them through a secret cellar door and onto a rickety old trolley. It's time machine to yesterday and soon Johnny and Fergie are off on the ride of their lives: to Constantinople during the Turkish invasion of 1453?

I remember loving the incredibly spooky Bellairs books I read as a kid, all from the Louis B. series, but I never read any others, so I don't know how spooky or scary a kid would find this one, or whether I'd find those other books spooky now. The book had a slow start and I almost put it down. It did get more exciting but it was choppy, and would probably be hard to follow for a kid who didn't know the relevant history, which would include the Crusades, the fall of Constantinople to the Turks, the 1890s, and the 1950s. I'm curious how the books I remember so fondly will seem to me now, but also a little afraid, on the basis of this book, to try them and be disillusioned. ( )

A change of scene that turned out rather fun. No evil magic, but just an old-fashioned, time-traveling trolley. A bit of steampunk, and some European history thrown in. ( )

Oh my lord this was stupid. I didn't much like the first Johnny Dixon book, but I thought it might get better - it got worse instead. I could spend a few thousand words dissecting all the stuff that was wrong, but I'll sum it up by - the "plot" was a collection of dei ex machina, random events coming out of nowhere and sending them off on another weird angle. Gods and ghosts, and half a dozen magical items with no continuity or explanation for them. The putative plan was to alter events of the past - and the professor didn't see anything wrong with that. nor with bringing (and losing) various technologically advanced stuff (from a lighter to an inflatable raft). And to top it off, the "protagonist", Johnny, was a whiny wimp. The only thing he actually did on his own, not pushed or pulled by someone else, was worry about the professor - not do anything about it, but worry. He's also supposed to be claustrophobic...which is mentioned as they enter the _second_ dark underground tunnel they pass through, but not referred to at the first, or the _third_ tunnel, though it talks about how cramped it is. Sheesh! The book is copyrighted by "the estate of John Bellairs" - maybe it didn't get fully edited before it was released? Really really bad. I won't be reading any more Bellairs. ( )