Review: The Time of the Fireflies by Kimberley Griffiths Little

The Time of the Fireflies by Kimberley Griffiths Little

Release Date: July 2014

Publisher: Scholastic

Age Group: Children

Pages: 368

Source: Ebook from Publisher via Netgalley

Summary (goodreads.com): When Larissa Renaud starts receiving eerie phone calls on a disconnected old phone in her family's antique shop, she knows she's in for a strange summer. A series of clues leads her to the muddy river banks, where clouds of fireflies dance among the cypress knees and cattails each evening at twilight. The fireflies are beautiful and mysterious, and they take her on a magical journey through time, where Larissa learns secrets about her family's tragic past--deadly, curse-ridden secrets that could harm the future of her family as she knows it. It soon becomes clear that it is up to Larissa to prevent history from repeating itself and a fatal tragedy from striking the people she loves.

 My Review:

 This book gave a new meaning to the sense of generations. Most people want to know about their ancestors, who they were, what they did, what they were like. And while genealogists can find out their ancestors’ names, birth and death days, occupations, even where they lived, but no matter how much they want to know what their family was like they can’t because they can only know that if they were to go back in time. Luckily for the main character in this novel she has that chance (whether she wanted to or not). Larissa is magically transported back to her family’s glory days at the turn of the last century where she learns a secret that has cursed her family since. There are genealogists out there (my mother probably included) that would sell their own souls to be able to go back in time to meet the members of their families.

I loved this book.  Larissa was a great character to see both worlds through because of how perceptive she was.  A lot of the time she was dwelling on a scar that she had though, but because she is a 12 year old this is completely normal. All pre-teens and teens dwell on appearance.  The writing was always clear; I always knew when Larissa was in the past or present just by the language used. I got so attached to all the characters throughout Larissa’s family line. It was incredibly interesting to see one girl learn about major family events by actually seeing them. It was this genealogical time travelling that made the book so special. 

~Laura!