Adventures Through Time

The basis for so many wonderful gems in our collection of children’s fiction lies in the question of what it would be like to travel back into the past. In these books, we also meet characters who encounter children from other times, as though they have stepped from one time into another: a time slip. Clocks striking 13, medieval mansions, magical statues in mysterious gardens, sleeping in a certain bed or dressing up in historical clothing – discover what trigger it might be that could open a window for you to explore another world!

Updated June 30, 2024
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Wellington City LibrariesChildren's team at Wellington City Libraries
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Amorangi and Millie's trip through time
Keenan, Lauren
Paper Book
"Amorangi and Millie lost their mum. Their only clue to her whereabouts is a carving on a tree that says, Ím in the past! Rescue me! To do this, Amorangi and Millie must travel up every branch of their family tree and collect an object from each ancestor they meet. They must then be back in the...
Charlotte sometimes
Farmer, Penelope
Paper Book
It is Charlotte's first night at boarding school. But when she wakes up, the girl in the next bed is not the person who was sleeping there the evening before. And the new building outside her window seems to have metamorphosed into a huge, dark cedar tree! Somehow, Charlotte has slipped back forty...
The house of Arden
Nesbit, E.
Paper Book
The famous Arden family treasure has been missing for generations, and the last members of the Arden line, Edred, Elfrida, and their Aunt Edith, have nothing to their names but the crumbling castle they live in. Just before his tenth birthday, Edred inherits the title of Lord Arden; he also learns...
Ming & Flo fight for the future
French, Jackie
Paper Book
An empowering and exhilarating look at the girls who went before us, and the way they shaped the world. Twelve-year-old Ming Qong is convinced that girls must have changed the world, even if they are rarely mentioned in history books. So when Ming gets the chance to go...
Tom's midnight garden
Pearce, Philippa
Paper Book
Winner of the Carnegie Medal From beloved author Philippa Pearce, this sixtieth-anniversary edition is the perfect way to share this transcendent story of friendship with a new generation of readers. Philip Pullman, bestselling author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, called Tom's...
The children of Green Knowe ; and, The river at Green Knowe
Boston, L. M.
Paper Book
The Children of Green Knowe Collection brings the Lucy Boston classics The Children of Green Knowe and River at Green Knowe together in one beautifully packaged edition. These enchanting, haunting stories from Carnegie winner Lucy M. Boston have become...
A stitch in time
Lively, Penelope
Paper Book
Maria is always getting lost in the secret world of her imagination... A ghostly mystery and winner of the Whitbread Award,republished in the Collins Modern Classics range. Maria likes to be alone with her thoughts. She talks to animals and objects, and...
When Marnie was there
Robinson, Joan G.
Paper Book
A major motion picture adaptation by Studio Ghibli, creators of SPIRITED AWAY and ARRIETTY. Anna hasn't a friend in the world - until she meets Marnie among the sand dunes. But Marnie isn't all she seems... Sent away from her foster home one long, hot summer...
A tale of Time City
Jones, Diana Wynne.
Paper Book
A  thrilling story by the legendary Diana Wynne Jones--with an introduction by Ursula K. Le Guin. London, 1939. Vivian Smith thinks she is being evacuated to the countryside, because of the war. But she is being kidnapped - out of her own time. Her kidnappers are...
Countdown to yesterday
Marr, Shirley
Paper Book
James wishes he could go back in time. Back to when his mum and dad were together, when he had one home, when his family laughed and climbed hills and went to the movies. After meeting the enigmatic Yan, a girl who looks at the world differently, James discovers time travel might not be...
Legacy
Hereaka, Whiti
Paper Book
Seventeen-year-old Riki is worried about school and the future, but mostly about his girlfriend, who has suddenly stopped texting him. But on his way to see her, he's hit by a bus and his life radically changes. Riki wakes up one hundred years earlier in Egypt, in 1915, and finds he's living through...

For older readers

A traveller in time
Uttley, Alison
Paper Book
Penelope lives in the 20th Century, and it is only when she visits Thackers, a remote, ancient farmhouse, that she finds herself travelling back in time to join the lives of the Babington family, and watching helplessly as tragic events bring danger to her friends and the downfall of their heroine...

For older readers


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