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Readers > Amazing Adventures > Comments And Reviews
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Excerpts | Author Info
Comments And Reviews
"Eddie's fantastic adventures will leave you yearning for more." --- ForemostPress.com
2009 Georgia Author of the Year Awards (GAYA) Finalist
Time Pool: The Amazing Adventures of Eddie Dowd: Book 1
Tad Hutton unfolds a story with the patience of the island children and gentle native people he describes, his eye to the preservation of nature and native culture. Time Pool is a feast of historical fiction with a seasoning of whimsy as well as heart-thumping action. Hutton has created an original that time warps real history with real humor.
City-born, thirteen-year-old Eddie Cena Dowd is living peacefully with his father in his deceased mother's ancestral home on a fictional island in the vicinity of the Savannah coast. An island "conjure" connects him to the spiritual world of his past, as he travels through time into the physical bodies of a young Guale warrior when the island is on the brink of discovery by European sailors. Eddie barely has time to recollect his travels back in his own body and time before embarking on another time shift to the eve of the American Revolution in the body of an eight-year-old Guale servant girl.
Hutton blends this incredible journey with urgency. The guardianship of native presence and island environment rests squarely on Eddie's shoulders, even with the spooky mentorship of his aging Guale guide. As an educator, I wish I could evoke for my students Hutton's galvanizing engagement with history.
Valeri K. Keogh
Teacher, Fresno Unified School District
Fresno, California
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Hutton posits an irresistible theory that improves upon itself by proof upon proof. Just as dolphins carry thousands of years of images stored in their genetic mold and cull these images by pinging them to each other for survival, mating, food gathering, and fun, we humans instinctually carry thousands of years of knowledge, witting and unwitting, such that we do communicate from time pools and do so without regard to either current or historical periods.
Just as some of us have red hair or black skin from our ancestors, so too we carry from them deeply etched images of long-developed knowledge that we can cull forth and apply.
Hutton is clever, fun to read, and his book is a must-read for any young reader who wants to see, listen to and smell America’s early history and why, as Hutton says it: "All of us need to think that what we are doing is right."
Lawrence Onwall, Nevis, West Indies
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Time Pool is way cool! This guy Eddie Dowd travels way back and his images and insights flash-inhabit a great runner named Tato who escapes capture from slavery in 1530. Eddie then leap-frogs to the American Revolution and image flashes with Delphie, a very wise girl. She’s a Guale carrying thousands of years of knowledge and Eddie helps her and she helps Eddie. Oh, I forgot...Eddie and Tato ride a huge leatherback turtle to safety cause Tato image flashed a desperate need to hitch a ride. This is one cool book.
Tatiana Oberkoetter, 14
Dartmouth, Massachusetts
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This is a thrilling tale that just makes you want to read more. There's always action and humor with the simple turn of a page! It makes you not want to stop!
Kate Mooney, 12
Wilmington, DE
Follow Eddie Dowd’s epic adventures as he travels back through time to experience his island home through the eyes of other children. Readers will dive into the time pool with Eddie as history, nature and excitement unfold.
I really enjoyed the reading.
Kate Christmas
holidayk8+yahoo.com
(Change + to @)
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Hutton’s latest adventure cleverly cloaks historical possibility in the heroic nature of a young adventurer’s soul as he champions his ancestors’ struggle for survival.
Lauren Gilker
New York, NY
Interesting reading, unique perspective, slip back into the mind of one's ancestors to view history being made.
Unique perspective, within the mind of one's ancestors, for the teen who likes being there as history is being made.
I liked the use of male and female ancestors and the natural history for teens into birds, fish and animals.
Alice Hilton
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Though I no longer teach teens, I am an avid reader. The material in Time Pool: The Amazing Adventures of Eddie Dowd reads clearly and retained my interest. I particularly enjoyed the fact that Hutton is combining an intense storyline with the natural and cultural history of the area.
I'm not sure how Eddie has been transported into others' minds but it is
an intriguing idea, one that comes across as fantastical but believable.
It is not totally foreign to me because I am a fan of the Charles Todd
mysteries in which the protagonist lives with the mind of a Scottish
soldier from WWI in his psyche.
Marta Yamamoto
Berkeley, CA
- In this book we have a captivating sense of imagination with a real combined love of history.
- This book finds intrigue in the history of our country and tells the tale like a mystery.
- It makes history alive and real with descriptions that put you there.
Joe and Mary Donahue
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Mark Twain would love this story. In Time Pool: The Amazing Adventures of Eddie Dowd, author Tad Hutton traces the journey of a young teen, Eddie Dowd, as he manufactures practical jokes, takes part in late night "conjures," and meets all sorts of weird animals and characters. But that's only the start. Eddie travels back in time to his Indian ancestors' world, where he and his tribe fight slavers, ride giant turtles, and take part in an historic sea battle at the mouth of the Savannah River.
Eddie is a prankster with a crazy circle of friends and guardians. And then the mysterious Maman Lu sends him back in time to experience the life of his ancestors. He finds himself in the sixteenth century, in the consciousness of Tato, a young Indian. They form an uneasy alliance as Tato's tribe battles a raiding band of slavers. And then Eddie finds himself in the eighteenth century, in the mind of a young Indian princess, Delphie, as they take part in the first sea battle of the American Revolution. Through his experiences, Eddie begins to understand the history and culture of his people and his island.
The special intrigues of the novel are the parts played by animals and sea creatures. Snakes, big cats, sharks, and the intelligent and life-saving dolphins are just a few of the non-human characters who bring their special points of view to this rousing story.
Hutton writes in clear and concise prose, enriched by believable characters and a driving story line. Time Pool: The Amazing Adventures of Eddie Dowd is the first book of a trilogy about a coastal island. On the surface, it is a young teen's comic journey of self-discovery. Beneath this tale is a first-rate account of the historic, cultural, and environmental roots of Americana.
ForemostPress.com
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"An intriguing fun read!" --- ForemostPress.com
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