Magic Time Travel

Tag Area: Time Travel Method
Play

Anno 7603


After lovers Julie and Leander wonder how the world would be if each other had the better qualities of the opposite gender, the fairy Feen takes them forward in time to see the effects that raising children in just that way has had.

Although the play is universally reviled for a lack of literary aspirations, it has developed a bit of a cult following as perhaps the earliest example of social science fiction (don’t pay attention to the fairy behind the curtain) and human time travel! —Michael Main
Now my children! You wish to remake each other? Julie, you want your lover transformed into a more tender companion? And you Leander, you would rather that your Julie had a more aggressive bearing?
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  • Fantasy
  • Experimental
  • Definite Time Travel
Play

If

  • by Lord Dunsany
  • at the Ambassadors’ Theatre (London, 30 May 1921)

John Beal, a London businessman, is given a magic crystal that allows him to go back in time and change one act; he is happy with his current life, so he decides to merely go back to catch a train that he was annoyed about missing ten years ago—but the resulting changes are more than he ever expected.

This is the earliest story that I’ve seen where the hero goes back into his earlier body and relives something differently. Some of the later stories of this kind have no actual time travel, but merely give knowledge of an alternate timeline (e.g., Asimov’s “What If?”); others live out the two timelines in parallel (e.g., the 1998 movie Sliding Doors, also set in motion by a missed/caught train); and some, like If, are couched in terms of time travel (e.g., the 1986 movie Peggy Sue Got Married). —Michael Main
He that taketh this crystal, so, in his hand, at night, and wishes, saying ‘At a certain hour let it be’; the hour comes and he will go back eight, ten, even twelve years if he will, into the past, and do a thing again, or act otherwise than he did. The day passes; the ten years are accomplished once again; he is here once more; but he is what he might have become had he done that one thing otherwise.
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  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

The Worm Ouroboros


For the most part, the story is a high fantasy in which three chiefs of Demonland—Lord Juss, Spitfire, and Brandoch Daha—embark on a heroic quest to rescue the fourth lord from his imprisonment in the mountains of Impland. However, at the end, Queen Sophonisba undertakes a resolution to the final problem that could well involve time travel. —Michael Main
Lord, it is an Ambassador from Witchland and his train. He craveth present audience."
A black-and-white, diamond-speckled snake with hands and teeth winds
                around itself several times and eats its own tail.
  • Fantasy
  • Debatable Time Travel
Short Story

a Gavagan’s Bar story

The Untimely Toper: A Gavagan’s Bar Story


A man kills a bat in Gavagan's Bar and a wizard curses him, unmooring his feet in time. —Dave Hook
No image currently available.
  • Fantasy
  • Definite Time Travel
Comic Book

Journey into Mystery #39

I Lived Four Times!


Stefan Orjanski, a Hungarian soldier, is taken by his love to a sorcerer who can help him desert the army, but the help requires first living through part of the lives of four others. —Michael Main
I felt so strange . . . as if I were not alone! As if I were not myself!
No image currently available.
  • Fantasy
  • War
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Debatable Time Travel
Comic Book

Unusual Tales #9

The Day I Lived Over Again


While on the lam, hardened criminal Blackie Nelson gets a chance to live the day over—and this time he plans to evade the police and win the girl! —Michael Main
The day’s starting over again! This doll’s going to fall for me . . . Only this time I’m going to work things different!
In the large first panel, a man in a business suit stands in front of a larger
                version of himself as a caveman.
  • Fantasy
  • Weird Fiction
  • Mystery and Crime
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

The Boy and the Pirates


Young Jimmy Warren asks a genie to send him from present-day Massachusetts to the time of Blackbeard, and the genie obliges! But now, in order to avoid becoming a genie himself, Jimmy must trick the pirate into returning to Massachusetts. —Michael Main
This is a funny lookin’ bottle—yeah, neat. But I bet if I took it home, Pop would say, “It’s just another piece of junk.” Nobody let’s me do anything I want to. I wish I was far away from here; I wish I was on a pirate ship.
Along with many pirate scenes, a young, sword-wielding boy and his girl
                companion march toward a bearded pirate.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Comic Book

Strange Tales #111

Face-to-Face with the Magic of Baron Mordo!


Steve Ditko’s second-ever story of the master of the mystic arts includes one panel that, based on Stan Lee’s caption, involves time travel. Even though it was just one panel, it got me wondering whether the phrase race through time could possibly have a meaning. What would it mean for one time traveler to arrive at the final destination before another? Isn't the whole set up kind of like Doc Strange saying to Baron Mordo, “I’ll bet I can think of a number bigger than you can.” —Michael Main
Unseen by human eyes, the two mighty spirit images race thru time and space . . .
Doctor Strange and Baron Mordo sit entranced beside the Ancient One,
                while above them, their spirit images battle.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Fantasy
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Cameo Time Travel
Comic Book

Tales of Suspense #44

The Mad Pharoah!


Iron Man’s suit changes from grey to gold, and the golden Avenger is kidnapped and taken back to ancient Egypt where he upsets the plans of the consistently misspelled Mad Pharoah by winning the throne back for Cleopatra. —Michael Main
For though I do not know your real identity . . . I, Cleopatra, have lost my heart to you!
Carrying a smiling and waving Cleopatra in one arm, Iron Man flies over
                chariots and ancient Egyptians.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Comic Book

Strange Tales #148—150

Kaluu!


When Kaluu triumphantly sends the all-powerful Book of Vishanti back to the time of its origin, it falls to Doc Strange and the Ancient One to banish it to a timeless period so that it will never again fall into the wrong hands. —Michael Main
We approach the time-space continuum of ancient Babylonia— It is there that the book which we seek was created milenniums [sic] ago!
A worried Doctor Strange looks over his shoulder at an evil sorceror who
  • Fantasy
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

The Ghosts


In the 1960s, a solicitor—Mr. Blunden—arranges for a widow and her children to move to an English house while the rightful heir is tracked down. The two children, Lucy and Jamie, soon meet two orphans, Sara and Georgie, who are living in the house—with their own version Mr. Blunden—exactly one century before! The orphans need help, so with the aid of a magic potion, Lucy and Jamie go back in time to the very day before the orphans will die in a fire (according to the gravestone that Lucy and Jamie found). They definitely have a fix-the-past mission, and they definitely succeed, but in the process, an amazing twist on the grandfather paradox arises (see the spoiler below).

The story has a kind of reverse grandfather paradox: [spoiler Lucy and Jamie’s great-great-grandparents are Sara and Tom (a boy who died trying to save Sara and George). So, initially, Lucy and Jamie actually have no grandparents (at least not on that side), and it’s only by Lucy and Jamie going back in time to save Sara and George (as well as Tom) that Sara and Tom live long enough to have offspring. So where did Lucy and Jamie come from initially in order to be able to go back in time and create the conditions so that they will be born? This is almost a single nonbranching, static timeline, except for the fact that initially, Sara, Georgie, and Tom did die (as evinced by what Lucy and Jamie see and hear in the graveyar), so Lucy and Jamie did change things. I think we need a new name for it, perhaps the grandchild paradox.[/spoiler] —Michael Main
Lucy found it very confusing. “I don’t think I really understand this Wheel of Time business even now,” she said.

“Oh, I don’t understand it,” said Jamie cheerfully, “but then I don’t understand television either. But when you’ve seen it working, you can’t help believing in it.”
Diaphanous black-and-white drawings of a young boy and girl walk toward a green
                field with red and yellow flowers.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Families
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

The Amazing Mr. Blunden

  • written and directed by Lionel Jeffries
  • (at movie theaters, UK, 30 November 1972)

As in the The Ghosts, which formed the basis for the film, a mysterious Mr. Blunden arranges for a widow and her children to move to an old English house while the rightful heir to the house is tracked down. But in the film, young Lucy and Jamie are in 1918 rather than the 1960s, and the “ghost children” are from 1818 rather than the 1860s. Nevertheless, Lucy, Jamie, Sara, George, and Tom all have the same adventure in the past along with a cool Grandchild Paradox. —Michael Main
Now is the time. Look straight ahead and don’t be afraid.
Lynne Frederick (as Lucy) and Garry Miller (as Jamie) dance among ghosts.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Families
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

The Mirror


In 1978, a 20-year-old Boulder woman exchanges places with her grandmother in 1900 on the eve of their respective weddings. —Michael Main
He thought she wouldn’t answer but finally she said, “What if I can’t go back? What if I have to live out Brandy’s life? She lives an awfully long time, Corbin.”
The face of a young woman, with long hair parted in the middle, looks out from
                an oval mirror.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Fantasy
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Jubilee

  • written and directed by Derek Jarman
  • (at movie theaters, UK, February 1978)

In this early punk movie, John Dee, advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, calls forth the spirit Ariel who transports Dee and the queen to an anarchistic and largely unintelligible) England not far beyond the 1970s. —Michael Main
Now shall one king rise up against another. And there shall be bloodshed throughout the whole world, fighting between the devil, his kingdom, and the kingdom of light.
Black-and-white drawing of a punk Britannia sneering at us all.
  • Fantasy
  • Experimental
  • Satire
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Merlin and the Sword

  • by David Wyles, directed by Clive Donner
  • (at limited theaters, Davao, Phillipines, 5 January 1985) [We’re uncertain whether this debut in the Philippines had the title “Merlin and the Sword” or whether that title was not introduced until the later VHS tape. We also don’t know whether the Philipines release was the full CBS broadcast from later in 1985 or was the shortened version for the VHS (or possibly some other cut).]

When Katherine Davidson falls into an underground ice cave beneath Stonehenge, she finds that Merlin and his lover Niniane have been trapped there for a millennium, whereupon Merlin and Niniane proceed to show Katherine the story of how Morgan le Fay trapped them. —Michael Main
Love cancels all curses, love breaks all spells. Love is a magic greater than any wizard or witch, warlock or shaman.
Edward Woodward (as Merlin) raises both arms amid a montage of Malcolm McDowell
                (as Arthur), Candice Bergen (as Morgan Le Fay), and othe Camelot residents.
  • Fantasy
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Time Barbarians


In an ancient world of swords, sorcery, loin cloths, and bejeweled bikinis, an evil thief kills King Deran’s queen before escaping to modern-day Los Angeles. Since the thief also took a magic amulet with him, a loinclothless wizardess sends Deran after him to retrieve the amulet and avenge the queen’s brutal death. —Michael Main
The man you seek is in this world no longer. You must travel to another time to find him.
Scantily dressed barbarians Deron McBee (as Doran) and Jonne Ayers (as Lystra)
                stand in front of a forest with a modern city showing in the background.
  • Fantasy
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 1

Dinosaurs before Dark


Eight-year-old prospective scientist Jack and his imaginative little sister Annie discover a tree house full of books, the first of which magicks them into the age of reptiles with a friendly Pteranodon they call Henry, a not-so-friendly T. Rex, and a drove of other dinosaurs. —Michael Main
“Wow,” whispered Jack. “I wish we could go to the time of Pteranodons.”

Jack studied the picture of the odd-looking creature soaring through the sky.

“Ahhh!” screamed Annie.

“What?” said Jack.

“A monster!” Annie cried. She pointed out the tree house window.
A young boy with glasses and a backpack rides a flying Pteranodon, while a
                young girl runs below.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 2

The Knight at Dawn


Cautious Jack and his gung-ho sister Annie have their second adventure through time when a book in the magic tree house sends them to the age of knights and chivalry. For the most part, they’re passive observers, but when they return back to Frog Creek, Pennsylvania, Jack discovers another clue about the magic person who may have built the treehouse. —Michael Main
“My magic wand!” Annie said, waving the flashlight. “Get down. Or I’ll wipe you out!”
Young Jack and his younger sister Annie sit in front of a knight on his horse
                with a castle in the background.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 3

Mummies in the Morning


Jack and Annie go to the pyramids in Egypt where they help the thousand-year-old ghost of Queen Hupeti find her way to the next life. If this info from the queen is correct, that places them sometime in the period of 1500 BC to AD 700. They also ran into a tomb robber, the likes of which were a problem even in Ancient Egypt. —Michael Main
“For a thousand years,” said the ghost-queen. “I have waited for help.”
Young Jack and his younger sister Annie gasp at a mummie in an open coffin.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 4

Pirates Past Noon


Jack and Annie are thrown into a pack of pirates in the Caribbean who are intent on finding Captain Kidd’s treasure. —Michael Main
“No one escapes Cap’n Bones!” he roared. His breath was terrible.
Young Jack and his younger sister Annie race up a sandy tropical beach as three
                pirates land behind them.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 5

Night of the Ninjas


The tree house finally returns to Frog Creek, but with only a note from Morgan⁠]] pleading for help, so the kids end up following a clue to medieval Japan where they find the first of four items that they’ll need to save Morgan. —Michael Main
“The moonstone will help you find your missing friend,” the master said.
A hooded ninja in all black garb pulls a resistant young Jack and his younger
                sister Annie by the wrists.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 6

Afternoon on the Amazon


Jack and Annie travel to the Amazon, encountering army ants, snakes, crocodiles (does the Amazon have crocodiles?), a jaguar, and a monkey who gives them the second object they need to collect in their quest to save Morgan⁠]].

This is the first tree house story where the kids’ desitination might be in the present time, although there is still some time travel since the tree house always returns to the same time that it left, presumably so The Parents don’t worry. In any case. we’ve decided to mark this type of possibly-present-day story as having debatable time travel to distinguish this kind of destination from those in the past or future. —Michael Main
Jack nodded. Now he remembered. The ninja master said they wouldn’t be able to find the Pennsylvania book until they had found what they were looking for.
A crocodile gapes at frightened young Jack and his younger sister Annie in a
                dugout canoe.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Debatable Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 7

Sunset of the Sabertooth


The tree house takes Jack and Annie back to the stone age where they run into Cro-Magnon man, a cave bea, a sabertooth tiger, a mammoth, a woolly rhino, and other prehistoric beasties before returning home with the third magic object to rescue Morgan. —Michael Main
She stroked the mammoth’s giant ear. “Bye, Lulu. Thank you,” she said.
From atop a small cliff, a sabertooth tiger roars down at young Jack and
                Annie.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 8

Midnight on the Moon


For the first time, the tree house takes Jack and Annie to the future and off the Earth! —Michael Main
Jack nodded. “The book says the moon base was built in 2031,” he said. “So this book was written after that! Which means this book os from the future!.”
With the Earth hanging in the sky, young Jack and Annie bounce across the
                surface of the moon in their spacesuits.
  • Science Fiction
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 9

Dolphins at Daybreak


The tree house transports the kids to a coral reef somewhere in the South Pacific or Indian ocean where a mini-submarine gives them a tour of the wildlife, including dolphins and giant clams. We’ve marked the story as having debatable time travel since the only certain time travel comes from returning to Frog Creek, Pennsylvania, at the moment of their departure. —Michael Main
“You must show that you know how to do research,” said Morgan. “And show that you can find answers to hard questions.”
With the sun hanging low in a purple sky behind them, young Jack and Annie ride
                two dolphins over the waves.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Debatable Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 10

Ghost Town at Sundown


Jack and Annie head back to the Old West where they meet a piano-playing ghost, cattle rustlers, and a cowboy who’s a budding writer. —Michael Main
“Slim, you should write your book,” said Annie.
Dressed as young cowboys on a street in an old west town, a startled Jack and
                Annie look into the distance.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (s02e08)

Inna-Gadda-Sabrina


In a crossover involving all four of ABC’s Friday night family-friendly shows, Salem eats Sabrina’s time ball, sending their world back to the 1960s and sending each of the other shows’ characters to a different decade as well. You could argue that the time ball causes the whole culture to experience the world as if it were back in the 1960s rather than producing actual time travel. —Inmate Jan
You hold it and your surroundings become whatever decade you think of.
On the set of Sabrina’s house, Caroline Rhea (as Hilda), Melissa Joan Hart
                (as Sabrina), and Beth Broderick (as Zelda) flash peace signs in sixties clothes.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Debatable Time Travel
TV Episode

Boy Meets World (s05e06)

No Guts, No Cory


As part of ABC’s Friday night crossover, Salem (the cat from tag-4138 Sabrina) transports the Boy Meets World world to 1940s America where Cory, his dad, and Shawn all ship off to war. —Michael Main
I don’t know how I would handle living back then. You know, I wonder what it was like during World War II.
Down on one knee, Ben Savage (as Cory Matthews in a World War 2 uniform)
                proposes to Danielle Fishel (as Topenga in a 1940s dress).
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Debatable Time Travel
TV Episode

You Wish (s01e07)

Genie without a Cause


In the third part of ABC’s Friday night crossover, Sabrina’s cat Salem transports the You Wish gang to the 1950s Travis has a James Dean-ish drag race, Genie inspires a young Bob Dylan, and Salem tries to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Felix the Cat. —Michael Main
I hope this is the one where she stomps on the grapes.
Closing title card Episode 7 of You Wish, with an ad for abc dot com and
                Sabrina riding a bicycle across the moon.
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Debatable Time Travel
TV Episode

Teen Angel (s01e07)

One Dog Night


The final part of ABC’s Friday night crossover took Salem the cat to Teen Angel’s house where he transports Teen Angel and the family back to the time of disco and, apparently, altered the course of the 1976 presidential election. —Michael Main
Oh, honey, you can go any time. Disco’s gonna last forever.
Closing title card Episode 7 of Teen Angel, with a logo for abc dot com and
                Melissa Joan Hart (as Sabrina) talking with Mike Damus (as the Teen Angel).
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Debatable Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 11

Lions at Lunchtime


Jack and Annie travel to the plains of Africa—probably with no time travel apart from returning to their exact moment of departure—where among the lions and giraffes, they solve the third of four riddles on their way to becoming Master Librarians. —Michael Main
Jack watched as she hopped off the ladder. Then she started to walk through the tall grass, between the zebras and giraffes.
On an African savannah. Young Jack and Annie stumble upon a lion and his
                family.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Debatable Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 12

Polar Bears Past Bedtime


In the Arctic, a native seal-hunter and the animals of the north show Jack and Annie their way of life while the kids solve the final riddle in their quest to join the Ancient Society of Master Librarians. —Michael Main
The tree house was on the ground. There were no trees and no houses, only an endless field of ice and snow.
Young Jack and Annie, along with a polar bear standing tall, stare up at an
                aurora borealis.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Debatable Time Travel
TV Episode

You Wish (s01e09)

All in the Family Room


Slighted by his sister, Travis uses Genie’s time travel portal to run away to a pirate ship. —based on ShareTV
On a pirate ship in pirate drab, John Ales (as the Genie) and Nathan Lawrence
                (as Travis) stare each other down.
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 13

Vacation under the Volcano


Jack and Annie take on their first mission as members of the Ancient Society of Master Librarians: retreiving a lost scroll from Pompeii! —Michael Main
“This story was in a library in a Roman town. I need you to get it before thelibrary becomes lost.”
Dressed in ancient Roman garb, young Jack and Annie flee in the streets of
                Pompeii as Vesuvius erupts behind them.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

You Wish (s01e13)

Gift of the Travi


When Genie gives each of the kids a Christmas wish, Mickey wishes for a white Christmas in LA, and Travis wishes that it would be Christmas every day. Yeah, like that ever works out. —Michael Main
I wish every day was Christmas.
An exhausted Santa Claus waves his hands in frustration.
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 14

Day of the Dragon King


In ancient China, Jack and Annie meet the heavenly beings behind the legend of the Silk Weaver and the Cowherd, and they rescue the first written book that tells their tale. —Michael Main
“Give a message to the silk weaver. You will see her at the farmhouse,” said the young man. “Tell her to meet me here at twilight.”
Dressed in ancient Chinese garb, young Jack and Annie confront the first
                Chinese emperor.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 15

Viking Ships at Sunrise


Another book for Jack and Annie to rescue, this time a collection of Celtic tales from the 9th century AD. —Michael Main
The serpent’s neck was as tall as a two-story building. Its green scales were covered with sea slime.
Alone in a small Viking ship with a dragon masthead, young Jack and Annie seem
                worried about reaching the shore through rough waves.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 16

Hour of the Olympics


Jack and Annie meet Plato and learn about the treatment of women in ancient Greece, while also rescuing a fourth lost book from history for Morgan’s library —Michael Main
At that moment, Plato returned. With him was a young woman dressed in a long tunic with a colored border. She was holding a scroll.
Dressed in ancient Greek garb, young Jack and Annie drive a horse and chariot
                down a dusy street.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 17

Tonight on the Titanic


A note from Morgan introduces Jack and Annie to a little brown dog named Teddy who needs three gifts to free him from a spell. Then they all head back to the Titanic to find the first gift (but not to save the sinking ship). —Michael Main
“Well, at least that’s good,” said Jack. “The ship won’t sink, even if it is lost.”
Young Annie clutches a small tan dog beside Jack at the prow of the Titanic.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 18

Buffalo before Breakfast


Jack and Annie are given a second gift for Teddy from the legendary White Buffalo Woman of the Lakota. —Michael Main
. . . I got in the way of the buffalo. I couldn’t escape. So I held up my hands and shouted, ‘Stop!’ Then, out of nowhere, a beautiful lady in a white leather dress came to help me.”
With Native American tents behind them, young Jack and Annie (as well as their
                small dog) run from a charging buffalo.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 19

Tigers at Twilight


Jack, Annie, and their spellbound dog Teddy face tigers and other wildlife in India. —Michael Main
“When you saved the tiger, you saved all of him,” said the blind man. “You saved his graceful beauty—and his fierce, savage nature. You cannot have one without the other.”
As an Indian tiger pounces, young Jack and Annie swing away on vines.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Debatable Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 20

Dingoes at Dinnertime


The little dog, Teddy, needs one more gift before the spell he is under can be broken, so Jack and Annie take him to the Australian outback where the final gift comes from a mama kangaroo. —Michael Main
But at least I got to have exciting adventures as a dog!
Wearing Aussie slouch hats, young Jack and Annie (together with their little
                dog, a kangaroo, and a joey) face down three growling dingoes.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Debatable Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 21

Civil War on Sunday


Morgan sends a plea for help to Jack and Annie, asking them to find four kinds of writing that are needed to save Camelot, which starts the kids on their next trip, back to the American Civil War where they volunteer at a Union field hospital. —Michael Main
We’d like to volunteer as nurses.
Young Jack and Annie help an injured Union drummer boy across a battlefield.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 22

Revolutionary War on Wednesday


In their second quest to find a sample of writing to save Camelot, Jack and Annie find themselves at the start of the American Revolution as Washington and his men prepare to cross the Delaware. —Michael Main
“Yes! And you have to keep going for our sake,” said Annie. “For the sake of the future children of America, sir.”
George Washington stands at the prow of a small boat in icy water, while young
                Jack and Annie clutch a Revolutionary War flag behind him.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 23

Twister on Tuesday


Jack and Annie go to a one-room schoolhouse on the Kansas prairie where they save everyone from a twister and find the third piece of writing to save Camelot. —Michael Main
Suddenly, the schoolhouse door blew off its hinges! It went flying through the air!
Dressed as pioneers, young Jack and Annie run from a tornado on the prairie.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 24

Earthquake in the Early Morning


Jack and Annie help a man rescue old, treasured books after the Great San Francisco Earthquake and before the fire. And with their fourth piece of writing, they finally get to visit Camelot! —Michael Main
Jack slowly stood up. His legs felt wobbly. As he brushed off his pants, the deep rumbling came again—louder than before.
Young Jack and Annie reach for each other across a gaping fissure in the middle
                of a brick street with burning buildings behind them.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 1*

Christmas in Camelot


On Christmas Eve, Jack and Annie’s tree house transports them to King Arthur’s castle in Camelot. They arrive to find that all is not well in Camelot, Merlin has been banned, and all magic use is forbidden. Many of the bravest knights have been lost on a mysterious quest to the Otherworld. The Christmas feast is interrupted by a knight, who sets a challenge to find the knights and break the curse. He demands to know “Who will go?” Annie, naturally, accepts. She and Jack set out on a quest to the Otherworld, to bring back magic and joy to Camelot. —based on fandom.com
Draped in a flowing red cape, young Jack clings to his sister Annie who clings
                to the nect of a white, flying stag with a castle in the background.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Debatable Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 25

Stage Fright on a Summer Night


The two young tree house time travelers go to the Globe Theatre in Shakespearian times where they play the parts of two fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and discover their first kind of magic without wands. —Michael Main
“’Tis,” said Wil “The queen pretends to be young and beautiful. Just as you pretended to be a boy, and the bear pretended to be an actor. You see, all the world’s a stage.”
Dressed in colorful green garb, young Jack and Annie take bows on a
                Shakespearian stage.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (s06e22)

I Fall to Pieces


On the rebound from a breakup, Aunt Hilda meets her soul mate—the conductor from the Halloween mystery train—and if the wedding is to go on, Rodin to do his thing. —Inmate Jan
Oh, I can’t believe it: The only time a witch falls to pieces is when she’s separated from her soul mate.
In cardinal and gold bridesmaid dresses, Beth Broderick (as Zelda) and Melissa
                Joan Hart (as Sabrina) pose beside bride Caroline Rhea (as Hilda).
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Debatable Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 26

Good Morning, Gorillas


Jack and Annie travel to an African rain forest, encountering a young gorilla before being separated from each other for the night. But all turns out well when they find each other, find a family of bigger gorillas, and find a second kind of magic without wands.

As with several of the Magic Tree House stories, the kids’ destination in this one might be in the present time. —Michael Main
But he couldn’t find the magic. He couldn’t find the words that finished the rhyme. Worst of all, he couldn’t find Annie.
A gorilla pounds his chest in a lush jungle, startling young Jack and Annie.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Debatable Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 27

Thanksgiving on Thursday


Jack and Annie visit the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where they learn little things about the pilgrims’ way of life and big things about the magic of community and being kind. —Michael Main
Be kind to those who feel different and afraid.
Dressed as pilgrims, young Jack and Annie carry a large pumpkin and a basket of
                gourds and corn down a dirt road in front of colorful autumn trees.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (s07e08)

Bada Ping!


Sabrina takes Salem into the future to find out her fate after gangster Mickey Brentwood finds out that she’s writing an exposé on his shady practices. —Inmate Jan
You see, this thug nightclub owner threatened our little Lois Lame over there—
Melissa Joan Hart (as Sabrina) lies peacefully in a white-lined coffin.
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Debatable Time Travel
TV Episode

Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (s07e09)

It’s a Hot, Hot, Hot, Hot Christmas


While on a Christmas trip to Florida, Sabrina and Salem travel back in time to see who robbed the condo where everyone is staying —Inmate Jan
Oh, oh, oh—I think you went back a little too far!
Melissa Joan Hart (as Sabrina) pulls the lever on an a vintage engine order
                telegraph, bathing herself and Salem the cat in gold and red light.
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Debatable Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 28

High Tide in Hawaii


When Jack and Annie visit Hawaii before any Western influences, Annie is the more natural surfer. They also discover a fourth kind of magic in the everyday world, earning the title of Magicians of Everyday Magic. —Michael Main
Jack took a deep breath. “I’d like to read a little about surfing first,” he said. He put his board down and pulled out the research book.
With leis around their necks, young Jack and Annie surf on a smooth wave.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

Children of the Red King #2

Charlie Bone and the Time Twister


In 1916, young Henry Yewbeam’s lily-livered cousin tricks him into staring at the Time Twister marble, sending Henry ninety years into the future, where the cousin is still alive at over a hundred years and just as lily-livered as ever. The other children of time, some of whom are endowed with magic powers from an ancestor, are neatly divided into nice kids and horrid kids. There is never a doubt about which is which, although there are plenty of doubts about whether a rational model of time travel underlies the two (or possibly three) time travel instances. Please see the book’s tags for a short discussion of the issues. —Michael Main
“People can’t go back. You can’t change history Think about it! When my father was five years old, he lost his brother. It changed his life. He became an only child, grew up as an only child. All his memories are of being an only one. You can’t change that now, can you?”

“No,” Charlie said quickly. “I’m sorry.”

His uncle hadn’t finished. “Henry’s parents mourned him, just as they mourned poor little Daphne. James was their only child and, as a result, he was probably spoiled. His father died in the war and his mother left everything to him, including her lovely cottage by the sea. You can’t change that, can you?”
A startled boy looks at another young lad who reaches for a crystal ball
                containing a mountain scene, with a sabretooth tiger or other large cat.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 2*

Haunted Castle on Hallow's Eve


In their magic tree house, Jack and Annie are again transported to King Arthur’s realm, where invisible beings, giant ravens, and mistaken magic spells have a duke’s castle in an uproar on Halloween night. —based on fandom.com
Young Annie and Jack stare up at turret of a spooky castle with a full moon in
                the night sky behind.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Debatable Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 3*

Summer of the Sea Serpent


Jack and Annie travel in their magic tree house to the land of the mystical selkies to seek a magical sword for Merlin. —based on fandom.com
Stranded on a small rock in a rough sea, Annie and Jack bravely hoist a heavy
                sword toward a menacing sea serpent.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Debatable Time Travel
Feature Film

Harry Potter 3

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban


Compared to the books, I find the Harry Potter movies drawn-out and boring, but I rewatched this one during the pandemic and found that I enjoyed all three thirteen-year-olds as well as Hagrid, Sirius, Snape, Lupin, and—most of all—the fact that the filmmakers didn’t blithely destroy the single static timeline out of a misplaced sense that time travelers are meant to change the timeline willy-nilly. —Michael Main
Hang on! That’s not possible. Ancient Runes is at the same time as Divination. You’d have to be in two classes at once.
Daniel Radcliffe (as Harry Potter), Emma Watson (as Hermione Granger), and
                Rupurt Grint (as Ron Weasley) are watching something that spooks Harry, fascinates
                Hermione, and terrifies Ron.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 4*

Winter of the Ice Wizard


Jack and Annie are joined by Teddy and Kathleen as they travel to the snowy Land-Behind-the-Clouds, where they search for the eye of the Ice Wizard and attempt to help Merlin and Morgan. —based on fandom.com
Warmly dressed Annie and Jack climb icy steps toward a white-bearded wizard on
                a throne, garuded by two white wolves.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Debatable Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 5*

Carnival at Candlelight


While on a mission to prove to Merlin that they can use magic wisely, Jack and Annie travel to eighteenth-century Venice, Italy, to save the city from disaster. —based on fandom.com
On the back of a winged, golden lion, Annie holds a lantern with one hand and
                clings to her brother Jack with the other.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 6*

Season of the Sandstorms


Guided by a magic rhyme, Jack and Annie travel to ancient Baghdad on a mission to help the caliph disseminate wisdom to the world. —based on fandom.com
Dressed in Arab headdresses and long, lightweight robes, young Jack and Annie
                perch on two camels marching across desert sands.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 7*

Night of the New Magicians


Jack and Annie visit the Paris World’s Fair of 1889 in an effort to protect four scientific pioneers from an evil sorcerer. —based on fandom.com
Dressed as 19th-century children, young Annie and Jack ride a
                bicycle-built-for-two through the Paris night sky.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 8*

Blizzard of the Blue Moon


The magic tree house carries Jack and Annie to New York City in 1938 on a mission to rescue the last unicorn. —based on fandom.com
Bundled up warmly, young Jack and Annie ride a white unicorn through a
                snowstorm.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

7 Zwerge #2

7 Zwerge: Der Wald ist nicht genug


In this retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, an older Snow White is the distraught mother in danger of losing her child, and she enlists the help of her seven old friends who (among other things) travel through a magic mirror to modern-day Hamburg. Do they time travel? That depends on whether you consider their homeland to be a secondary world (which implies travel from one world or universe to another) or a part of old Germany (which implies actual time travel!). There is a case to be made for it being old Germany, given that the first movie in the 7 Zwerge series told us that they lived in a “sinister forest, deep in the heart of a country known as . . . Germany.” —based on Wikipedia
The seven dwarves pose in front of a giant stone image of the number seven in a
                giant red dwarf hat.
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Debatable Time Travel
Feature Film

The Santa Clause 3

The Escape Clause


Now that Santa and Mrs. Claus have the North Pole running smoothly, the Counsel of Legendary Figures has called an emergency meeting on Christmas Eve! The evil Jack Frost has been making trouble, looking to take over the holiday! So he launches a plan to sabotage the toy factory and compel Scott to invoke the little-known Escape Clause and wish he'd never become Santa. —from publicity material
This is the part where I’m transported through time and everything goes back to the way it was, like I’d never become Santa at all.
Tim Allen (as Santa) and Martin Short (as Jack Frost) smile out at us over a
                winter scene in a tiny town.
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 9*

Dragon of the Red Dawn


When Merlin is weighed down by sorrows, Jack and Annie travel back to feudal Japan to learn one of the four secrets of happiness. —based on fandom.com
Standing on the edge of a cliff in the clouds, frightened Annie and Jack face a
                golden dragon breathing blue fire.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Debatable Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 10*

Monday with a Mad Genius


Jack and Annie travel 500 years back in time to Florence, Italy, and spend a day helping Leonardo da Vinci in the hope of learning another secret of happiness. —based on fandom.com
Wearing large wings and startled looks, young Annie and Jack fly high over the
                Cathedral of Santa Maria in Florence.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

Miri and Molly 2

Magic in the Mix

  • by Annie Barrows
  • (Bloomsbury Children’s Books, December 2007)

After their first adventure united Miri and Molly as twins in the 21st century, the pair discover more about the magic of time travel via doorways and other openings in their house. Unfortunately, their twin brothers also go traveling, getting into hot water in 1864 Virginia. —Michael Main
Molly, that’s totally crazy. You can’t stop yourself from existing because you do exist, you have to exist.
Twin twelve-year-old girls, one in a knee-length purple dress, and the other in
                jeans and a t-shirt, hold hands in a doorway beside a white kitten.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

Miri and Molly 1

The Magic Half


As a middle child stuck between two sets of twins, eleven-year-old Miri Gill feels an outsider until one day in her attic room, she slips back in time from the 21st century to 1935 where she meets Molly, another eleven-year-old who needs her help.

Also in need of some help is the model of time travel in the story, which is a mishmash of popular representations that no person at age eleven or elsewhen should be exposed to. Specifically, I would have enjoyed an attempt to square the Branching Timeline implied by the hole in floor with the single nonbranching, static timeline and Ex Nihilo paradox hinted at by the time-travel device. I truly liked that ex nihilo paradox, and wish it had been explicitly dealt with rather than swept under the carpet. —Michael Main
If you think about it too long, you’re going to go crazy, and then I’ll never get to your time.
Two eleven-year-old girls, one with long braids and the other with
                long, untied hair, float in front of rose-patterned wallpaper.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 11*

Dark Day in the Deep Sea


When Jack and Annie join a group of nineteenth-century explorers aboard the H.M.S. Challenger, they learn about the ocean, solve the mystery of its fabled sea monster, and gain compassion for their fellow creatures. —based on fandom.com
Young Annie and Jack struggle underwater in the grip of a giant squid!
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

Artemis Fowl, Book #6

Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox

  • by Eoin Colfer
  • (Hyperion Books for Children, July 2008)

When fourteen-year-old genius Artemis Fowl realizes that the only cure for his mother’s case of Spelltropy lies in a species of lemur that Artemis made extinct eight years ago, there is only one solution: Grab your 80-year-old, elfin-police-captain-friend Holly Short and trick her into traveling back in time to stop your formerly evil, ten-year-old self from killing off the last of the all-cure lemurs.

Author Eoin Colfer does a masterful job presenting a single nonbranching, static timeline, complete with three consistent causal loops (further described in our tag notes for this story). But really, Eoin, you missed the shuttle on “the kiss”! With the help of N°1, Artemis can time travel, so if you're intent on his first romantic kiss coming from Holly Short, couldn’t N°1 have brought Holly’s actual fourteen-year-old self into the story? Might have even presented an opportunity for a fourth causal loop: Fourteen-year-old Holly kissees fourteen-year-old Artemis, but only because fifteen-year-old Artemis had already told thirteen-year-old Holly that they would enjoy it. —Michael Main
Oh, bless my bum-flap. You’re time travelers.
A boy clutching a lemur and followed by a smaller version of himself is blown
                out of the page by a yellow explosion.
  • Science Fiction
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Young Adults
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 12*

Eve of the Emperor Penguin


The magic tree house takes Jack and Annie to Antarctica to search for the fourth secret of happiness for Merlin. —based on fandom.com
Dressed in red polar suits, young Jack and Annie stand on an ice flo facing two
                penguins, one of which wears a crown.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Debatable Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 13*

Moonlight on the Magic Flute


Jack and Annie travel to Vienna, Austria, in 1762, where they meet the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his sister and help save the young budding genius’s life through music. —based on fandom.com
Dressed in the fancy clothes of a young prince, Jack plays a flute and leads
                Princess Annie, a bear, and a tiger through the woods.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 14*

A Good Night for Ghosts


Jack and Annie must travel back in time to New Orleans in 1915 to help a teenage Louis Armstrong fulfill his destiny and become the “King of Jazz.” —based on fandom.com
Wearing white shirts, trousers, and suspenders, young Jack and Annie are
                startled by two larger spiders in lantern light.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 15*

Leprechaun in Late Winter


Jack and Annie travel back to nineteenth-century Ireland to inspire a young Augusta Gregory to share her love of Irish legends and folktales with the world. —based on fandom.com
Peeking over a rock wall in rolling green hills, young Jack and Annie are
                startled to see a marching leprechaun playing a tin whistle.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 16*

A Ghost Tale for Christmas Time


Jack and Annie travel back to Victorian London when Merlin asks them to use their magic to inspire Charles Dickens to write “A Christmas Carol.” —based on fandom.com
A giant, bearded ghost with a torch beseeches young Annie and Jack who are
                dressed as 19th-century London street fiddlers.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 17*

A Crazy Day with Cobras


The magic tree house whisks Jack and Annie back to India during the Mogul Empire in the 1600s to search for an emerald needed to break a magic spell. —based on fandom.com
Appearing as tiny fairies in colorful garb, young Annie and Jack face down two
                menacing cobras.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 18*

Dogs in the Dead of Night


Jack and Annie travel to a monastery in the Swiss Alps where, with the help of St. Bernard dogs and magic, they seek the second of four special objects necessary to break the spell on Merlin’s pet penguin, Penny. —based on fandom.com
Dressed as monks in brown robes, young Jack and Annie race through snow after a
                bounding Saint Bernard.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

The Last Musketeer 1

The Last Musketeer

  • by Stuart Gibbs
  • (HarperCollins, September 2011) [print · e-book]

While chasing the cad who stole his family’s prized black crystal, young Greg Rich ends up back in AD 1615 where he and three future Musketeers must save Greg’s parents from Dominic Richelieu (the cardinal’s evil brother) and the deadly prison known as La Mort. —Michael Main
When joined as a whole, the Devil’s Stone was rumored to perform many miracles: strike people dead in an instant, turn lead into gold, even open portals in time.
A boy dressed in a long sleeve shirt with a short sleeve shirt on top leads the
                way down a dark alley with two Musketeers behind.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 19*

Abe Lincoln At Last


The magic tree house whisks Jack and Annie to Washington, D.C. in the 1860s where they meet Abraham Lincoln and collect a feather that will help break a magic spell. —based on fandom.com
Dressed as 19th-century American children, young Annie and Jack run across the
                White House lawn toward Abraham Lincoln.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 20*

A Perfect Time For Pandas


Magically transported to southwest China to find the final object needed to break the spell on Merlin’s beloved penguin, Jack and Annie take a side trip to the world’s largest giant panda reserve. —based on fandom.com
In red jumpsuits, young Annie and Jack carry three baby pandas through a stand
                of tall bamboo.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 21*

Stallion by Starlight


Jack and Annie are magically transported to Ancient Greece to find the meaning of greatness. There, they meet the young Alexander the Great and take part in the famous story of how he tamed his horse, Bucephalus. —based on fandom.com
Dressed in a toga and sandals, young Annie clings to the back of a rearing
                stallion as a frightened Jack looks on.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 22*

Hurry Up Houdini!


Jack and Annie meet one of the world’s most famous illusionists, Harry Houdini. —based on fandom.com
On stage in black suits and bow ties, young Jack and Annie use their wands to
                make cards and pigeons fly while rabbits leap from a top hat.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 23*

High Time for Heroes


Jack and Annie are magically transported to mid-1800s Thebes, Egypt, where they are saved from a dangerous accident by Florence Nightingale. —based on fandom.com
Dressed as an Egyptian explorer, young Jack has just gone over a cliff and now
                hangs by one hand in Annie
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 24*

Soccer on Sunday


Jack and Annie search for the fourth secret of greatness for Merlin in Mexico City at the 1970 World Cup Games. They hope to learn something new from soccer player great, Pele. —based on fandom.com
On a muddy field, barefooted Jack jumps high to kick a soccer ball while Annie
                runs toward him.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novella

Magic Tree House: Super Edition 1

Danger in the Darkest Hour


The magic tree house takes Jack and Annie back in time to England in 1944, where the country is fighting for its life in World War II. Before long, Jack and Annie find themselves parachuting to Normandy, France, behind enemy lines, and they realize that they’ve arrived on the day before D-Day. Will the brave brother and sister be able to make a difference during one of the darkest times in history? —based on fandom.com
Dressed in G.I. gear from tip to toe, the children Jack and Annie parachute
                through exploding artillery at night.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Debatable Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 25*

Shadow of the Shark


As a thank-you gift from Merlin and Morgan, Jack and Annie are sent on what should be a vacation at a luxurious resort in Cozumel, Mexico, but is, by mistake, an adventure with ancient Mayans instead. —based on fandom.com
On a log raft in rough water, Jack uses a paddle to fight off a shark while
                Annie clings on for dear life behind him.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 26*

Balto of the Blue Dawn


Jack and Annie travel back in time to 1925 Nome, Alaska, where they meet Balto, the famous sled dog, and save the town from an illness. —based on fandom.com
A black sled dog leads a team of five others pulling young Jack and Annie
                behind them on a wooden sled.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 27*

Night of the Ninth Dragon


When a mysterious note invites them to Camelot, Jack and Annie travel in the magic tree house to the magical kingdom where they must find a lost dragon. —based on fandom.com
Young Annie and Jack face a fierce dragon at the edge of a volcanic caldera
                brimming with lava.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Debatable Time Travel
Feature Film

Marvel Cinematic Universe 14

Doctor Strange


After his career is destroyed, a brilliant but arrogant surgeon gets a new lease on life when a sorcerer takes him under her wing and trains him to defend the world against evil. —from publicity material
Dormammu, I’ve come to bargain.
Benedict Cumberbatch (as Doctor Strange) casts a spell with two outstretched,
                transparent fingers.
  • Eloi Silver Medal
  • Fantasy
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 29*

A Big Day for Baseball


Jack and Annie go back to Jackie Robinson’s major league debut at Ebbett’s Field in 1947. The story has a twist we haven’t seen before: When they put on two magic hats, everyone sees Jack and Annie as if they were teenage bat boys rather than little children. —Michael Main
One minute he’s tall! The next he’s short! One minute he can throw the ball! The next he can’t!
Dressed as a ballboy and ballgirl, young Jack and Annie watch Jackie Robinson
                swing a baseball bat.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Marvel Cinematic Universe 19

Avengers: Infinity War


Given that the Time Stone is a key element to Thanos’s master plan, you’d think that time travel would play a major part in this movie, but not so. Doc Strange does use the stone to view a slew of possible futures, but we know that’s not actually time travel. So where does the time travel come into play? Pay close attention to the final thirteen minutes of the film, after Strange announces “We’re in the end game now,” and you’ll spot one definite time travel moment and a second possible moment. —Michael Main
Tony, there was no other way.
A giant Josh Brolin (as Thanos) stands proudly behind a determined Robert
                Downey Junior (as Iron Man) and the rest of the Avengers.
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 30*

Hurricane Heroes in Texas


The children play a role in saving thousands during the Great Galviston Hurricane]]. —Michael Main
Annie turned back to the couple. “Excuse me again, do you know today’s date?” she asked.
“September eighth,” the woman said with a friendly smile.
“Nineteen-hundred?” Jack asked.
Wading through knee-high water in a storm, young Jack and Annie carry two dogs
                to safety.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 31*

Warriors in Winter


Morgan sends Jack and Annie back to the time of Marcus Aurelius on the northern border of the Empire where they meet kind soldiers, mean soldiers, and the emperor himself. —Michael Main
“So I hear,” said the emperor. “When I first met you, I thought you must live nearby in Carnuntum. But now I do not think that is so. Where is your home?”
“Frog Creek, Pennsylvania,” said Annie.
“Beyond the Danube,” said Jack.
A Roman soldier seems just as startled as young Jack and Annie when all three
                meet on a snowy slope.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

The Ottoman Secret


Secret police agent Kamal teams with his sister-in-law Nisreen, fleeing through time from pursuing gunmen who killed Nisreen’s family because toprotect the secret that their world was created by a violent temporal disruptor who altered history in favor of an autocratic Islam theocracy. —Michael Main
Nisreen: I want to know how it is different and why he wanted to change it. Don’t you see? That’s how the world was supposed to be.

Ramazan: Assuming no one else had gone back and changed things before he did.
A man and a woman flee under a red Turkish flag that hangs from the Eiffel
                tower.
  • Science Fiction
  • Fantasy
  • War
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 32*

To the Future, Ben Franklin!


Jack and Annie bring a rather fainthearted and confused Ben Franklin to their own time, hoping to convince him to sign the Constitution. —Michael Main
Morgan’s telling us to take Ben to Frog Creek. To our time.
Dressed as Colonial American children, young Jack and Annie race across a brick
                street with Ben Franklin.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

The Knight before Christmas


In AD 1334, a crone prophesizes Sir Cole’s future and sends the Englishman on an ambiguous quest to 2019 Ohio, where he does knightly non-Ohioan things and discovers the love of his life on Christmas Eve. —Michael Main
You shall travel to faraway lands, see things undreamed of: flying steel dragons and horses, magic boxes that make merry.
Vanessa Hudgens (as Brooke) in a lacy red dress and Josh Whitehouse (as Sir
                Cole) in his armor stand back-to-back in front of a modern Ohio Christmas day and a
                medieval Norwich castle.
  • Fantasy
  • Romance
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 33*

Narwhal on a Sunny Night


Jack and Annie visit the first Icelandic settlers in Greenland. —Michael Main
“Oh, I get it—your dad is Erik, so you are called Erik-son!” said Annie.
At the edge of an ice flow, young Jack and Annie greet a narwhal as it breeches
                the surface of the sea.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 34*

Late Lunch with Llamas


The children rescue a llama at the height of the Inca Empire. —Michael Main
“Show us,” the emperor ordered. “Show us all how this little llama speaks.”
Young Jack carries a baby llama along a narrow mountain path with Annie and an
                eagle behind him.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

Press Start! 9

Super Rabbit Boy’s Time Jump!


A superhero rabbit from a low-resolution handheld video game fights his arch-nemesis, King Viking, who plans to stop Baby Rabbit Boy from ever getting superpowers. —Michael Main
I built this Super Mega Robot Time Machine to use the Time Crystal’s power. That means I can travel through time!
Two low-resolution video game rabbits swirl into a vortex along with four
                clocks.
  • Science Fiction
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Day of Destiny


In 2020, Nigerian brothers Chidi (the black sheep) and Rotimi (think of Carlton Banks) are thrown back twenty years, giving them a chance to fix the ruinous financial path their parents embarked upon way back when. —Michael Main
When you change your destiny, you can never change it back.
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

WandaVision


I don't understand this power, but I will.
No image currently available.
  • Eloi Gold Medal
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Debatable Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 35*

Camp Time in California


Annie and Jack are given magical drawing powers when they meet a grizzly bear and a few other wanderers in 1903 Yosemite. —Michael Main
If you’re a friend of bears, then take my advice: Walk softly and carry a big stick.
A bear cub at night startles young Jack and Annie by their campfire.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Comic Book

The Magic Tree House: Graphic Novel 1

Dinosaurs before Dark: The Graphic Novel


The adaptation and artwork are faithful and delightful, although I’m disappointed that commercial pressures resulted in a graphic novel for what was explicitly designed to engage early readers. —Michael Main
Wow. I wish we could go there.
A happy young girl sits in front of a hesitant young boy with glasses and a
                backpack on the neck of a Pteranodon.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Fantasy Island (v3s01e03)

Quantum Entanglement


The new Fantasy Island inches closer to actual time travel when Elana helps “invisible” Eileen understand her relationship with her grown daughter by acting as a Dickensian guide and showing Eileen how her daughter experienced growing up. And young Ruby receives news of how her family is managing without her. —Michael Main
Eileen: She absolutely loved it here.
Elena: Are you sure?
Kiara Barnes (as young Ruby Akuda), dresseed in white, looks wiser than her
                years with tropical trees behind her.
  • Fantasy
  • Debatable Time Travel
TV Episode

Fantasy Island (v3s01e04)

Once Upon a Time in Havana


Finally! Some Actual Time Travel™ as Elena takes young drummer Alma Garcia back to 1967 Havana to learn the real story of the musical grandfather who abandoned his family decades ago—and the role Alma played in that single, static timeline. —Michael Main
Grandfather: Who are you? Where do you really come from? Elma: Just an Americana who plays the drums.
Gigi Zumbado (as Alma) smiles at night in front of a chain-link fence.
  • Fantasy
  • Music and Musicals
  • Definite Time Travel
Cartoon

What If  . . . ? (s01e04)

What If . . . Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?


As we all know, when the world’s formost surgeon, Doctor Strange, lost the use of his hands in a car wreck, it prompted him to search out mystic treatments and eventually become the Master of the Mystic Arts. But what if he had lost something else in that wreck? —Michael Main
The Ancient One: Her death is an Absolute Point in time.
Dr. Strange: Absolute?
A.O.: Unchangable. Unmovable. Without her death, you would never have defeated Dormamu and become the Sorcerer Supreme—and the guardian of the Eye of Agamotto. If you erase her death, you never start your journey.
A computer animated cartoon drawing of Benedict Cumberbatch (as Doctor Strange)
                casting a spell.
  • Eloi Silver Medal
  • Fantasy
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Fantasy Island (v3s01e05)

Twice in a Lifetime


The Island takes Nisha into two different versions of her future life in order to help her decide which man to marry. Only the Island knows whether Nisha is actually time traveling or merely experiencing potential futures, but the story’s ending suggests the latter. And meanwhile, out in the Island wilderness, Elena and Javier share intimate moments. —Michael Main
Let the future unfold.
John Gabriel Rodriquez (as Javier with a five-o
  • Fantasy
  • Debatable Time Travel
TV Episode

Fantasy Island (v3s01e06)

The Big Five Oh


Lifetime friends Camille, Margot, and Nettie are celebrating their 50th birthdays on the Island along with a bit of time-slowing for Margot and a non-interactive trip to view a potential future for all three. —Michael Main
Margot [after seeing the future]: Was that real?
Elena: As of this moment, yes.
Daphne Zuniga, Josie Bisset, and Laura Leighton (as Margo, Cam, and Nettie) hug
                it out with smiles, champagne, and long white, terrycloth bath robes.
  • Fantasy
  • Debatable Time Travel
TV Episode

Fantasy Island (v3s01e07), pt. 2

The Bromance


Brian Cole, a hard-core survivalist, faces his greatest challenge: working with and understanding his own young self. —Michael Main
I might be you, but I’m not a moron.
Lying on a rocky slope, Eric Winter (as Brian Cole) looks skyward while an
                out-of-focus Roselyn Sanchez (as Elena Roarke) stands calmly in the background.
  • Fantasy
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Fantasy Island (v3s01e07), pt. 1

The Romance


To help Miss Marshall find her way in the real wrld, the Island sends her to Victorian England to spend time with her favorite author. —Michael Main
Do you ever think you were born in the wrong time?
Lyinging on a blanket in a Victorian gardan, Caitlin Stasey and Gillian Saker
                (as Isabel Marshall and Rachel Coldwater) share a quiet moment reading a book
                together.
  • Fantasy
  • Definite Time Travel
Comic Book

The Magic Tree House: Graphic Novel 2

The Knight at Dawn: The Graphic Novel


Retells, in graphic form, the tale of eight-year-old Jack and his younger sister, Annie, who are whisked back in the magic tree house to the time of knights and castles. —from publicity material
Annie: [turning on her flashlight] That’s right! We have a magic wand and we’re not afraid to use it!
A happy young girl and a hesitant young boy with glasses and a backpack sit in
                front of a knight in armor on a bucking horse.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Flashback


After high-powered lawyer Charlie Leroy gets her client cleared from a rape charge by claiming that the accuser’s lacy underwear was consent to have sex, Charlie finds herself transported by a divine cabdriver to historical moments that were key for women’s rights. —Michael Main
Attends . . . si maman n'épouse pas papa, je vais pas naître. Je viens de me tuer.
translate Wait . . . if Mom never marries Dad, I won’t be born. I just killed myself.
Issa Doumbia (as cabdriver Hubert) leans on a cab in front of Caroline Vigneaux
                (as Charlie), who is surrounded by lots of people from history.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

Magic Tree House 36*

Sunlight on the Snow Leopard


The magic tree house is back with a message from Morgan le Fay telling Jack and Annie to seek out the Gray Ghost and listen to her story, and immediately they are whisked away to Nepal where they meet Tenzin, a climber who has recently lost his family, and who takes them up to the mountain to meet a snow leopard and renew himself. —based on fandom.com
Dressed in warm mountain gear, young Jack and Annie race with a snow leopard
                over an alpine field.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Debatable Time Travel
Comic Book

The Magic Tree House: Graphic Novel 3

Mummies in the Morning: The Graphic Novel


For the first time in graphic novel—live the adventure again with new full-color vibrant art that brings the magic to life! —from publicity material
Two frightened children enter a tunnel in a pyramid along with a black cat.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Debatable Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

Magic Tree House 37*

Rhinos at Recess


No image currently available.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Undetermined Time Travel