Review: Tilly and the Time Machine by Adrian Edmondson

In Australia more people than not would associate Adrian "Ade" Edmondson with his hilarious comedic roles as Vyvyan Basterd in The Young Ones or as Eddie Hitler in the as politically incorrect as you can get Bottom. However, if anyone so much as scratches the surface of his career, they will soon discover that he has enjoyed a wide variety of serious and comic roles on stage and screen, he formed a folk band called The Bad Shepherds (who toured Australia a few years back,) that he works extensively as a scriptwriter and released his first novel in 1995. Consequently, it is unsurprising that his first (and hopefully not his last,) children's novel Tilly and the Time Machine is a real winner.

The novel opens with Tilly, who is aged seven and a half, discovering that her dad, an eccentric but kind and loving scientist has just built a time machine. Dad says that they can go anywhere in time that Tilly wants to go, but there is only one place she wants to be--at home on her sixth birthday, back when her mum was still alive. Anyway, something goes a bit wrong with the time machine, and Dad ends up stuck in time. Tilly soon finds herself on one heck of an adventure, as she outwits some crooks, and then moves through time in an effort to save her Dad. And be prepared, this journey is a lot of fun, with some genuine laugh out loud moments and loads of clever plotting. Don't write this one off as the efforts of yet another celebrity writing a children's novel. Adrian Edmondson is the real deal--clever, funny and entertaining. I love the illustrations as well.

Highly recommended. 

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