Shades of Red

Darleen R. Golke is a high-school teacher-librarian in Abbotsford, B.C.

This final instalment in the Eagle Glen trilogy, a time-slip fantasy
series, opens with Darrell Connor on her birthday grieving the
“biggest loss of her life”—her father’s death in a motorcycle
accident three years earlier that also cost Darrell her right foot. With
her mother due to leave on a Doctors Without Borders stint, Darrell both
looks forward to and dreads returning to Eagle Glen Alternative School,
a “place peopled with eccentric and extraordinary teachers and
attended by her two best friends.” Darrell still suffers from guilt
about leaving Conrad behind on their last time-travel adventure (Secret
of Light), and counts on Professor Tooth’s guidance.

A “secret passage” in the library leads to underground tunnels, and
a “weird symbol on the wall” propels the adventurers through a
portal to 16th-century Lisbon’s Inquisition period where Darrell
stumbles across Conrad’s journal. On her second time-slip passage, she
whizzes to Henry VIII’s England at the time of the Protestant
Reformation, meets Anne Boleyn, and bears witness to the upheaval caused
by Henry’s passions. For a third time, Darrell slips back to London
just before Anne Boleyn’s execution, reconnects with Conrad, and in
offering comfort to Anne, Darrell finds her own peace with the past.

Darrell’s 16th-century adventures bring the history of the period
alive. Dyer carefully transforms the travellers to blend with their
historical surroundings; Darrell’s high-tech prosthesis “morphs”
into an “antique wooden foot,” they wear what Paris calls the
“coolest clothes,” they speak the accent and dialect of the era.
“Time compresses as it passes somehow” so days in the past are
minutes in the present. With an appealing cast of characters and an
intriguing glimpse into history, this entertaining young-adult novel is
highly recommended.