Saving Lucas Biggs

Written by: Marisa de los Santos and David Teague

     The one thing thirteen-year-old Margaret O’Malley is sure of is that her father is innocent. So when the unthinkable happens and he’s sentenced to death by the cruel Judge Biggs, Margaret is desperate to save him. She’ll do whatever it takes, even if it means using her family’s secret – and forbidden – ability to travel through time.
Margaret’s only hope is to stop the chain of events that turned Lucas Biggs into a corrupt and jaded man. With the help of her best friend, Charlie, and his grandpa Josh, Margaret jumps back in time to a year when everything in her town was going wrong – a year that changed Lucas Biggs forever. Together with a then-thirteen-year-old Josh, Margaret sets out to change the past. But the rules of time travel are strict, and as the forces of history resist, Margaret is running out of chances before she will be pushed back to a present where her father is doomed.

The summary is from the jacket flap and is provided by Harper.

This book is a fantastic story about regrets, living with the unknown, and the power of believing in the ones you love.  I’m always a sucker for a good time travel plot (and admittedly obsessed with trying to find mistakes in the system) but this story is so much more than that. The heart wrenching situation the father is in is completely compounded by the events in history that set this path in motion.  You will also fall in love with the endearing characters on each end of the time spectrum that face every obstacle they encounter head on.

Discussion/Project Ideas:
1. Research your city, or one around you, and find out how it was founded or formed. What is the history of its beginning?

2. The miners of Canvasburg peacefully protested in order to gain better working conditions. Protests in various forms have also played a vital role in our nation’s history. Research and discuss a variety of protests and the impact each has had on the people and places that were involved.

3. If you could travel in time, would you want to go forward or back? What would your plan be? When would you travel to? What would you hope to do or learn?

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