Now the end is near. We face the final curtain. Wait! Oh, what? No, this blog isn't about Frank Sinatra, but the very excellent wrap-up novel in the TIME ROSE series by Renee Duke.
Find out about all of Renee's books on her website: Time Traveling with Kids and Author Page on Amazon. I wrote my review of the last book in the series, The Volcanic Rose (https://mgddasef.blogspot.com/2020/08/5-in-time-rose-series-volcanic-rose.html ), to include my thoughts on the series as a whole.
Read my review of Generations Five on this post following the book blurb.
Generations Five
For centuries, the Time Rose medallion has taken the children of a history-loving family into the past to restore the life paths of children whose own histories have been altered.
When all such paths have been set to rights, a final task awaits those destined to be the final seekers, aided by some who served the medallion in the four preceding generations. From Iron Age Britain to World War II Holland, these are their stories.
REVIEW OF GENERATIONS FIVE (*****)
77 A.D. A medallion with a distinctive rose design is forged from the pieces of a statue of an eagle by a sorcerer. His purpose: To send generations of a family line to the past. Each Medallion-holding generation is given the ability to travel back, find the holder of a matching medallion, deduce what the holder needs, and then solve the problem in any way they can. No hints or clues are given. The medallion takes each Generation to a person and place only the diviner of the medallion generation can know.
Centuries pass with the Medallion passed down through the Wolverton family, all children under the age of fifteen, into adventures beyond their imagining.
Finally, though, the medallion and the holder pieces must be brought back together. The first five books in the Time Rose series detail the medallion holders and their travels. A prophesy divined by one of the Wolvertons, Aunt Aurie, before the turn into the 20th Century is finally made clear. From the time she penned the poem, there would be only five generations remaining who will hold and use the Time Rose Medallion.
When generations five remain alive,
Deliverance is near.
And the rose tree will its role fulfil,
If all can persevere.
The book begins with the first of the last generations. In 1921, Sebastian and Etta Wolverton travel back to the time of the English Revolution (Oliver Cromwell ring a bell?). The younger sister, Aurelia, is an unwilling participant and never time travels again. Sebastian and Etta, however, are attuned to the Medallion and have very little trouble adapting to the idea of time traveling and perceive what they are supposed to do.
“Generations Five” is a prequel to the other five books in the series. It answers questions about the entire Wolverton family's involvement with the rose medallion, and provides the historical context of the final five generations to use the Medallion. Sadly, this book completes the story of the time traveling Wolvertons teaching all the kids a lot of history (and we readers, as well) and shows with their intelligence and bravery exactly why the family was chosen to use the medallions magic from 1066 to the final Five generations.
What he comes down to is that this is a great series and you should get it for your own kids, their cousins, and the kid down the block who needs something good to read. It's very worthwhile even for us grown-ups who like rousing tales extending across centuries of history. You know, those history bits we all learned then forgot in school.
Read the entire series. I did and am both pleased and saddened to make this my final review on a wonderful set of stories by Renee Duke.
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