Johnny and the Bomb (Johnny Maxwell Trilogy #3) by Terry Pratchett

From the Publisher

When Johnny Maxwell finds himself mysteriously transported through time to the Second World War, he knows when and where bombs will fall. If he tells anyone, he risks changing the future. If he doesn't, innocent people will die. . . .

Children's Literature

Her unusual name may cause some sophisticated readers to consult the nearest encyclopedia, but even those who do not know that a trachyon is a special particle that is able to travel faster than the speed of light, will quickly learn that Mrs. Trachyon is a strange bag lady. She inadvertently lets a brick fall on an unexploded bomb in England during World War II. Flash forward to 1996, where we meet Johnny and his friends, Bigmac, Yo-less, Wobbler, and Kirsty. When Mrs. Trachyon is involved in an accident, Johnny takes her grocery cart of belongings and her cat Guilty back to his house. When he touches the amorphous bags in the cart, Johnny and his friends find themselves transported back in time to that fateful day when the German bombs hit their town. Johnny, a worrier by nature, discovers that he can take charge when he needs to. Pratchett's concept of parallel worlds, likens them to a pair of trousers: There are two different pantlegs, and each represents a path in time. They are quite similar. For each action we take, there is a consequence that causes the future to go in a certain direction. Each of our actions does matter. More than a lesson in history or physics, this encourages readers to accept that each of us is responsible for our own actions. Pratchett takes on issues such as Black stereotyping with his characteristic humor. Lively characters, humor, and a fascinating plot will make this a popular read. Reviewer: Sharon Salluzzo

VOYA

Johnny and his friends Yo-less, Bigmac, Wobbler, and Kirsty take on time travel in the final volume of the Johnny Maxwell trilogy. When Johnny finds Blackbury's resident bag lady, Mrs. Tachyon, injured in an alley, he gets help for her and keeps her shopping trolley-loaded with garbage bags and an ill-tempered cat named Guilty-in his garage for safekeeping. The bags are literally full of time, and Johnny and the gang can travel in time if they touch them. Johnny wants to try to rescue the occupants of a street in Blackbury who died in an air raid in 1941, and of course, he and the gang run into the issue of changing the future by changing the past, what Pratchett calls the "trouser legs of time" theory. In addition, on their first try, Wobbler gets left behind, resulting in an alternate future for them all. Nevertheless they work it out, assisted indirectly by the aptly named Mrs. Tachyon from her hospital bed. Pratchett is in fine form here; the narrative is briskly humorous and insightful. Johnny has always been an appealing and well-developed character, and now his friends become more rounded and defined characters. Yo-less exhibits his keen intellect more sharply, for example, and Kirsty's forthright manner proves to be one of her flaws as well. Even Wobbler gets to be wiser than he might otherwise appear. Pratchett fans and newbies alike will not be disappointed.

KLIATT

In this time travel adventure, 13-year-old Johnny has nightmares about planes and bombs and at first worries he's going mad. Then he discovers that a bag lady's shopping cart has the power to transport him back in time to 1941, the night a Nazi bomb fell on Paradise Street in his hometown of Blackbury, England. If he and his group of misfit friends can go back and warn people in time to save lives, how will that affect the future? As always, fantasist Pratchett is a delight to read, and this concluding volume in a trilogy about reluctant hero Johnny is both funny and thought provoking as Johnny wrestles with doing the right thing and with understanding the tricky nature of time. The novel, originally published in England in 1996, was short-listed for Britain's Smarties Prize and for the Carnegie Award, and it can stand alone. Americans shouldn't have too much difficulty with the British slang, and all readers will quickly be caught up in the plot.

Emily RodriguezCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information. - School Library Journal

Gr 5–8
This trilogy ends with a bang. Having stumbled upon a way to travel through time, Johnny knows exactly when a German bomb will be dropped on his English village. Time travel turns out to be tricky, however, as it takes Johnny and his friends several trips to alter history just enough to save their town, but also to ensure that everything stays the same when they return home. Adding to the suspense is the imaginative vehicle of a crazy bag lady's squeaky cart to time travel, often with unpredictable results. The climax is reached at rocket speed as Johnny becomes increasingly aware of the many dimensions of time and ultimately relies on this ability to save the townsfolk. Pratchett deftly weaves alternate realities together to form a satisfying conclusion, keeping confusion at bay by treating the weightier issues of time travel with his trademark humor. Alternating between 1990s Britain and World War II, he offers plenty for thoughtful readers to mull over even as he pokes fun at the genre. While there is little connection to the other books in the series, Johnny's quirky sidekicks are back, each sidesplittingly portrayed and effectively advancing the plot. It is Johnny who cares most about the effect the war will have on his sleepy town, and up until the very last page, readers will, too.

Product Details

• ISBN: 0060541938
  
• ISBN-13: 9780060541934
• Format: Paperback, 256pp
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Pub. Date: April 2008
• Edition Description: Reprint
• Sales Rank: 34,459
• Age Range: 8 to 12
• Series: Johnny Maxwell Trilogy, #3

• Read a Sample Chapter

Read a Sample Chapter

Chapter One

After the Bombs

It was nine o'clock in the evening, in Blackbury High Street.

It was dark, with occasional light from the full moon behind streamers of worn-out cloud. The wind was from the southwest and there had been another thunderstorm, which freshened the air and made the cobbles slippery.

A police sergeant moved, very slowly and sedately, along the street.

Here and there, if someone was very close, they might have seen the faintest line of light around a blacked-out window. From within came the quiet sounds of people living their lives—the muffled notes of a piano as someone practiced scales, over and over again, and the murmur and occasional burst of laughter from the radio.

Some of the shop windows had sandbags piled in front of them. A poster outside one shop urged people to Dig for Victory, as if it were some kind of turnip.

On the horizon, in the direction of Slate, the thin beams of searchlights tried to pry bombers out of the clouds.

The policeman turned the corner and walked up the next street, his boots seeming very loud in the stillness.

The beat took him up as far as the Methodist chapel, and in theory would then take him down ParadiseStreet, but it didn't do that tonight because there was no Paradise Street anymore. Not since last night.

There was a truck parked by the chapel. Light leaked out from the tarpaulin that covered the back.

He banged on it.

"You can't park that 'ere, gents," he said. "I fine you one mug of tea and we shall say no more about it, eh?"

The tarpaulin was pushed back and a soldier jumped out. There was a brief vision of the interior—a warm tent of orange light, with a few soldiers sitting around a little stove, and the air thick with cigarette smoke.

The soldier grinned.

"Give us a mug and a wad for the sergeant," he said to someone in the truck.

A tin mug of scalding black tea and a brick-thick sandwich were handed out.

"Much obliged," said the policeman, taking them. He leaned against the truck.

"How's it going, then?" he said. "Haven't heard a bang."

"It's a twenty-five-pounder," said the soldier. "Went right down through the cellar floor. You lot took a real pounding last night, eh? Want a look?"

"Is it safe?"

"Course not," said the soldier cheerfully. "That's why we're here, right? Come on." He pinched out his cigarette and put it behind his ear.

"I thought you lot'd be guarding it," said the policeman.

"It's dark, and it's been pouring," said the soldier. "Who's going to steal an unexploded bomb?"

"Yes, but . . ." The sergeant looked in the direction of the ruined street.

There was the sound of bricks sliding.

"Someone is, by the sound of it," he said.

"What? We've got warning signs up!" said the soldier. "We only knocked off for a brew-up! Oi!"

Their boots crunched on the rubble that had been strewn across the road.

"It is safe, isn't it?' said the sergeant.

"Not if someone drops a dirty great heap of bricks on it, no! Oi! You!"

The moon came out from behind the clouds. They could make out a figure at the other end of what remained of the street, near the wall of the pickle factory.

The sergeant skidded to a halt.

"Oh, no," he whispered. "It's Mrs. Tachyon."

The soldier stared at the small figure that was dragging some sort of cart through the rubble.

"Who's she?"

"Let's just take it quietly, shall we?" said the sergeant, grabbing his arm.

He shone his flashlight and set his face into a sort of mad friendly grin.

"That you, Mrs. Tachyon?" he said. "It's me, Sergeant Bourke. Bit chilly to be out at this time of night, eh? Got a nice warm cell back at the station, yes? I daresay there could be a big hot mug of cocoa for you if you just come along with me—how about that?"

"Can't she read all them warning signs? Is she mental?" said the soldier under his breath. "She's right by the house with the bomb in the cellar!"

"Yes . . . no . . . she's just different," said the sergeant. "Bit . . . touched." He raised his voice. "You just stay where you are, love, and we'll come and get you. Don't want you hurting yourself on all this junk, do we?"

"Here, has she been looting?" said the soldier. "She could get shot for that, pinching stuff from bombed-out houses!"

"No one's going to shoot Mrs. Tachyon," said the sergeant. "We know her, see? She was in the cells the other night."

"What'd she done?"

"Nothing. We let her nap in a spare cell in the station if it's a nippy night. I gave her sixpence and a pair of ole boots what belonged to me mum only yesterday. Well, look at her. She's old enough to be your granny, poor old biddy."

Mrs. Tachyon stood and watched them owlishly as they walked, very cautiously, toward her.

The soldier saw a wizened little woman wearing what looked like a party dress with layers of other clothes on top, and a woolly hat with a bobble on it. She was pushing a wire cart on wheels. It had a metal label on it.

"Tesco's," he said. "What's that?"

"Dunno where she gets half her stuff," muttered the sergeant.

The cart seemed to be full of black bags. But there were other things, which glittered in the moonlight.

"I know where she got that stuff," muttered the soldier. "That's been pinched from the pickle factory!"

"Oh, half the town was in there this morning," said the sergeant. "A few jars of gherkins won't hurt."

"Yeah, but you can't have this sort of thing. 'Ere, you! Missus! You just let me have a look at—"

He reached toward the cart.

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Excerpted from Johnny and the Bomb by Terry Pratchett Copyright © 2008 by Terry Pratchett. Excerpted by permission.
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