Gain Chronal Engine: A Prehistoric Time-Travel Adventure Constructed By Greg Leitich Smith Shown As Interactive EBook

found this to be a pretty excellent survival story, Add in some dinosaurs and some time travel, and there you go, The pace was pretty quick, the science not overexplained and I added this to my list for older developing formally "reluctant" readers.
My only gripe is that the illustrations are in illtimed positions, often ruining the surprise before the reader can even get to the set up.
By the end, that totally frustrated me, Another problem with the illustrations is of WHAT they depicted, In a story about dinosaurs I have never heard of before, and a setting that is also new, why are we given pictures of two boys sitting on a rockor a fight scene in which the dino is obscured by the human charactersJust saying.
Putting this book on children's sci fi and YA shelf since it reads like a hi lo book, even though it has older characters, I think myth and eventh graders could handle this one, especially the dino fans.
Captioned pictures add to the easy readability, I found it a bit convoluted, but author's note shows plenty of research, Bambiraptor makes me giggle :
After their grandfather predicts his own heart attack you read that right and their sister Emma is kidnapped and vanishes into thin air, Max, Kyle, and Petra ban together to rescue Emma.
Full of jawdropping moments, car chases, and man eating giants all set in prehistoric Austin, Texas, this story is all about surviving.
The characters are all smart in their own way, but Max is the brains and the dinosaur extraordinaire.
That may come off as a little nerdy for anth grader, but he doesn't care, Turns out mom and dad were right, nerds do rule the world and Max is one of them! Max is curious and observant, and I love that he is more or less the hero in the story.
His dino knowledge gets everyone out of hot water many times and without him, the rest of the group would not have lived in the wild for five minutes.
As we make our way through the story, Max is teaching us about the prehistoric landscape, its inhabitants and how to survive.
Max and Greg make learning about dinosaurs fun and totally interesting to any novice,

This story reminds me of a much more sophisticated and educational Magic Tree House book, You know the one I'm referring to, bookDinosaurs Before Dark, I can't tell you how many times that book has been circulated and read by both boys and girls alike in libraries and classrooms across the world.
Chronal Engine is a fantastic book for those Jack and Annie fans that have moved up to middle school and beyond.
The chapters are short, ranging frompages, and usually break during a heightened moment making it a great readaloud.
The illustrations, from Blake Henry, are spot on and this girl appreciates the visuals to go along with creatures I have never heard or seen before.
I never knew a Deinosuchus looked like a hammerhead shark with four legs! This story could easily be adapted into a full graphic novel.
Even better, have students/kids create their own story and incorporate their favorite creature extinct or fictional,

Chronal Engine is a fast paced, middle grade adventure perfect for boys and girls that love history, dinosaurs, and time travel.
Just the kind of book my boys love an adventurous tale of time travel and survival, with lots of interesting facts about paleontology to soak up along the way.
This was the third novel by

Greg Leitich Smith that I have read, Each has been a wonderful read, This story is written in a long tradition of Robinsonades, It is the story of time travel, dinosaurs and family, It was incredibly well written, I found it hard to put the book down the few times that I had to while reading it.
The characters were amazing, and the loops in the story and the logic behind them was stunning, The way Greg has scripted this story sets it up for a number of wonderful reads in the same world.


The story follows three youngsters who travel back in time to rescue a fourth, Their great, great, great grandfather supposedly created a time machine, Now they must use it and go on an adventure of their own into prehistoric Texas, Kyle and Emma, the twins, and their younger brother Max have come to their grandfather's ranch to spend the summer while their mother is on an archeological dig in Asia.
Petra is the daughter of the housekeeper and together with Max and Kyle needs to head back in time to rescue Emma.


Read the rest of the review and with links to other reviews by the authors on my blog sitelinkBook s and More.
This book is about some kids that go to their uncle's house and discover a machine called the Chronal Engine.
The always thought it was just made up until one of them got kidnapped, They had to go back in time to save their sister, They went through a lot of struggles in the book like dinosaurs and their car, I really liked this book because it was filled with a lot of action and adventure, Also I liked this book because it was about time travel and going back in time, I recommend this book because it is science fiction and takes you back to the dinosaur age and really make you feel that you are there.
Loved this book to give to eighth grade reluctant readers, Fun story and fast action, Loved the time travel, the dinosaurs, the four main characters and the conundrums! Fun fast read for adults, too!
Expected A LOT more! Great synopsis attached to the book and the basic premise is a good one.
But that's about it for the positives, If you claim in the title no less that your story is an adventure then it ought to be adventurous.
Sadly, Chronal Engine fails on that most important of fronts, As if this were not bad enough, the storytelling was stale and the characters lacked, well, character, This book is about Max, Kyle, and Emma, They are siblings going to there grandpas house for the summer, because their mom is going on a cruise.
They think that their grandpa is just mean and doesn't care about them, but they realize that isn't it when their grandpa predicts his heart attack, and Emma gets kidnapped by a time traveler.
Then when the grandpa goes to the hospital, Kyle and Max find The Chronal Engine, The Chronal Engine is a time machine, and the kids take The Chronal Engine to the Cretaceous period.
They have to avoid getting eaten by a trex, find food, and save Emma before she gets killed.


There wasn't a lot of poetic devices in this book, but there was some hyperboles,

I liked this book because it was funny and I also like the way it was wrote.
The pictures in this book were awesome, I also like the characters because they are really brave and funny, and weird, A time travel adventure that kids can really sink their reading teeth into! And the story bites back with thrilling excitement, family drama, and DINOSAURS!

Every little boy I've known has reached what I call "The Dinosaur Stage" where even as toddlers they're spouting off huge dinosaur names and begging for TRex toys.
Girls, too, are drawn to prehistoric beastswhich makes CHRONAL ENGINE a great read for all kids and adults who are kids are heart.


Author Greg Leitich Smith knows his dinosaurs, Facts mingle with fiction in such an interesting way that kids won't even realize they're getting a history lesson.
They'll be too busy flipping the pages to find out what happens next, their hearts thudding at scenes of kidnapping, dinosaur chases and time travel.
Great pacing, likeable characters and settings that literally bring the past alive,

Also there's an added bonus of artwork throughout the book, I loved the drawings! They really add another dimension to the story and will give young readers a clear idea of the size of dinosaurs compared to kids.


Great start to a new series! A mustbuy for librarians, A great readaloud for classrooms and parents, Enjoy the dinodrama! Quick YA time travel story, But with dinosaurs! So Back to the Future meets Jurassic Park, basically, Emma has been kidnapped. Her brothers Max and Kyle along with new friend Petra set out to find her, The catch: Emma has been taken back in time to the Cretaceous period, using their grandfathers time machine.
They will need to evade dinosaurs and figure out how to survive as they solve the mystery of the Chronal Engine and rescue their sister.


Time travel, dinosaurs and kidnapping all blend together in this middlequality, middlegrade adventure story, Max is dinosaurobsessed so much of his dialogue sounds like it came straight from an encyclopedia, The other characters are bland, The plot feels convenient, like grandpa knew what would happen and put all the pieces in place, But, like many time travel stories, the plot falls apart under any scrutiny, Clunky writing doesnt do much to help the thin story, Fullpage illustrations are placed every few chapters, providing very little visual interest but occasionally revealing a plot point before the event happens in the text.


Perfect for your dinosaurobsessed tenyearolds, but annoying for everyone else, this predictable story will likely lead to a series.
A fastpaced, enjoyable time travel adventure set in the late Cretaceous period, Here's what I have to say about THE CHRONAL ENGINE:

If you're looking for a fastpaced middle grade adventure/sciencefiction story, then this book is for you! The action starts on page one, and it never ends.


THE CHRONAL ENGINE is what happens when JURASSIC PARK meets GIDEON THE CUTPURSE, Yes, dinosaurs and time travel all in one awesome place,

The characters have serious spunk, They never stop trying to reach their goals, I think we could all learn a lot from them,

Did I mention Greg Leitich Smith was just awarded as one of the ambassadors of kidlit in Austin by Austin SCBWI


I've noticed the fun can be revised out of middle grade fiction.
Not at all the case with THE CHRONAL ENGINE, This is the kind of adventure I would have desperately wanted to go on as a kid or heck, even as an adult.
It's smart and witty andengaging!

So, yes, boys or girls, third grade or up, don't miss this book! You'll pick it up and won't put it down until you're finished!

Source of book: From publisher by request Quite an unusual juvenile fiction book with a little bit of everything: family, friendship, adventure, danger, time travel, dinosaurs and a little comedy.
Kind of a boyish version of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, only instead of Narnia with Kings, Queens and Fauns, its Jurassic Park.
Time travel, dinosaurs, and strange, wonderfully surprising details like the smell of dino poop make this a great boy middle reader.
dino poop is my phrase: Mr, Smith is far more restrained an author, Nice job! Huh. Well, that was huh. The one thing I loved about this book was the occasional awesomely funny line that came out of nowhere.
But kids dinosaurs isn't exactly the most original combination, It would need something exceptional to make this topic special, and somehow even time travel just didn't cut it.
I guess the biggest problem is how matteroffact everything is, When the kids' sister gets taken, they don't stress about it at allthey barely seem ruffled, They just almost immediately go back in time to fix it, despite not really knowing how to use the technology.
They have no real plan to find her once they get to the Cretaceous, but wander around fairly confidently until they find her.
You're just never really worried about anything, because you already know that it has to work out for themand because the flatness of the characterswhich takes away most of the point of reading the story.
Plus, you'd think someone of the serious scientific bent of the main character no kid has ever been THIS interested in dinosaurs would be a bit less blase about traipsing through time and changing stuff.
But one of his companions brings a baby dinosaur back to the present with no one so much as remarking on it.
And I don't mind books sometimes making fun of themselves, but one more than usually susceptible to the problems of the genre should probably avoid it.
It sounds like a sequel is being set up for, which might even be interestingbut given my feelings or lack therof for this book, I probably won't read the sequel.
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