The Navigator (Paperback)

From School Library Journal

Grade 5–8—This fantasy by Irish author McNamee introduces Owen, whose father has died mysteriously, and whose mother has sunk into a depression. Out in his wilderness hideaway, he catapults into a time vortex where he meets a girl named Cati and her fellow Wakeful. Their eternal task is to fight the Harsh, a powerful ice people who upend time, running it backward so that humans no longer exist. Owen, Cati, and other Wakeful set out to find the Puissance, the place where it is foretold that the Navigator, a legendary figure, can defeat the Harsh and restore proper time. Readers who head for D. J. MacHale’s “Pendragon” (S & S) and Garth Nix’s “The Keys to the Kingdom” (Scholastic) series may like this one as well, but it sometimes strains credibility. The idea that time is moving backward (from modern to medieval times by novel’s end), but that all humanity immediately disappears (even though there were humans back then) is hard to accept. (more…)