The Odyssey & Henry’s Box, by Sarah Aris (Semicolon Publishers, $11.99 paperback, 2021, ages 6-10, 76 pages), first in the series of The Adventures of Charlie & Baxter
A short little chapter book with illustrations, this first book in The Adventures of Charlie & Baxter introduces us to Charlie, an 8-year-old brave (headstrong?) girl techie, her more cautious 10-year-old brother, Baxter, and their dog, Sparky. Reminiscent of Mary Pope Osborne's The Magic Tree House books, the Charlie and Baxter books involve time travel, a robot, and a new computer language, Python, that apparently only Charlie can figure out (a programming language that not even the parents of readers recognize!).
Author Sarah Aris has selected a good moment in history for her first adventure book and The Odyssey & Henry's Box is timely for a March Black History Month read: it tells the story of how Charlie and Baxter save the day when they time-travel to an American plantation of 1849 and witness a slave auction. Aris also sets the stage and introduces us to the time-travel robot, Odyssey, and how Charlie programs it to transport the kids to another date in time and then safely back home again.
The interesting and true story of Henry 'Box' Brown, on which Charlie and Baxter's adventure is based is included at the end of the book.
This series is an update of The Magic Tree House books
but we recommend you stick with The Magic Tree House series for excitement, history and geography, writing style, and character development.
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