Countdown to Yesterday

Rebecca Stead’s The List of Things That Will Not Change gets a “Space Oddity” sci-fi twist in this moving middle grade novel about one boy’s journey to go back in time to prevent his parents’ divorce.

The present is the last place James wants to be. Since his parents have separated, he’s been living two different lives and neither of them add up to the great one he used to have. He thinks about his Top Six memories and wonders if he can go back.

During National Science Week, James meets the enigmatic Yan, a girl who looks at the world with x-ray eyes, and discovers that time travel might be possible after all. The two budding scientists’ quest to restore James’s lost past brings them into contact with retro Australian Women’s Weekly birthday cakes, old Commodore computers, chaotic rideshare vehicles of the future, and spacemen.

But as they get closer to their goal, James is forced to consider that his favorite moments from his personal history may not be as perfect as he remembers them.