I grabbed The Lost Track of Time by Paige Britt at one the scholastic warehouse sales I take the kiddo to twice a year.  It looked like something right up my alley, girl literally falls into her schedule to find time to write. smiles. The last warehouse sale I was at, my friend K brought it up to me and said, this so looks like something you’d like. I had to laugh and tell her I’d already bought it at the last sale.

Paige does an interesting job of intertwining pun and play on word lines with great story telling. I know I complained previous about too much play on words but this is not overdone at all. It’s funny. I felt so much for the main character, Penelope, who’s parents literally schedule every moment of her day. And she tries to talk to them about the things she wants. But they are incapable of hearing her. That part made me sad.

But then she falls into a schedule page that by some inexplainable mistake, was left blank, and Penelope runs off with the page while her mom is busy trying to figure out how it happened and how to fill the time. Because you can’t just do NOTHING. An amazing adventure ensues. Read it for yourself. But I do want to share a few lines that struck me so I had to read them two or three times.

Many had time to spare and would share it with anyone who asked. “There’s no present like time,” they’d say and give away minutes, hours, even days to those in need. (65)

Make sure you read that right. It doesn’t say there’s no time like the present, which is of course what my brain read the first time through. “There’s no present like time.”

“All we know is how you are, and how you are is exactly how you’re meant to be.” (102)

Pfffft. Mind Blown. This is me. As I should be. Makes me want to stop trying so hard to be a good person. It just go with my gut.

“The only time you can spend is the time you have right now. And the time you have right now is all the time in the world.” (235-236)

All the time in the world….

℘℘℘℘ – Four Pages. This one was hard to rate because it impacted me, but at times it dragged. LOL. So I compromised on a 4 rating.