The Boy Who Stepped Through Time by Anna Ciddor

This leads beautifully into the story’s climax and Perry’s subsequent return to his own time, where only several hours rather than several months have passed. As this day draws closer, Perry is determined to save her life. Before he fell through time, he visited a museum and saw a coffin inscribed with Valentia’s name and age at death: eleven years, two months and one day. There are moments of joy amongst the hardship highlights include scenes of grape treading, visiting Constantine’s bathhouse, and the festival of Saturnalia, when slaves switch places with their masters.īut something is weighing heavily on Perry’s mind.

He learns to serve the owner’s family at meal times, eat unappetising leftovers, sleep on the floor and use multi-seat latrines. Since he can’t do the former, he resolves to do the latter.ĭiscovering he can now speak and understand Latin, Perry befriends fellow slave Carotus and the villa owner’s daughter, Valentia.

As the realisation sinks in that he’s time travelled, Perry vacillates between longing to go home and wanting to make the most of this one-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He’s mistaken for a newly arrived child slave in a grand country villa surrounded by vineyards. Perry is an eleven-year-old Australian boy holidaying with his family in southern France when he accidentally falls 1700 years through time. Anna Ciddor’s self-described research ‘obsession’, her decades-long list of non-fiction titles, and the help of her sister, Tamara Lewit-a researcher and archaeologist specialising in the Roman Empire-make her perfectly placed to pen this richly detailed and riveting middle grade time-slip tale set in Roman times.

The Boy Who Stepped Through Time by Anna Ciddor