A Time Apart

by Diane Stanley

"The last thing Ginny wants is to be sent away...."But when her mother is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, she's packed off to England to stay with Hugh, the father she hardly knows. Hugh is part of a living history research project, which means he lives on an Iron Age farm without any modern conveniences. A summer without regular showers, TV, or the Internet could be a horror show, but Ginny manages to cope and even makes friends, including the handsome but mysterious Corey. Soon she's become a valued member of her Iron Age family. But is she strong enough to survive not knowing what is happening to her mother? And can Corey help her escape this prison of the past?

2000 Best Books for Young Adults (ALA) and Teacher's Choices for 2000 (IRA)

Genres: Young Adult, Fiction, Childrens, Contemporary, Realistic Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Diane Stanley is an American children's author and illustrator, a former medical illustrator, and a former art director for the publisher G.P. Putnam's Sons. Born in 1943 in Abilene, Texas, she was educated at Trinity University (in San Antonio, TX) and at Johns Hopkins University. She is perhaps best known for her many picture-book biographies, some of which were co-authored by her husband, Peter Vennema. (source: Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Kerstyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

After many many years, with help from a Goodreads group, I rediscovered this book that I could only recall snippets of from my childhood. Still good.

[Paige Westbrook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to ChatGPT, I finally found the book that has lived rent free in my head since I was 11 years old. Good nostalgia read.

[R · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a book for action lovers. It’s a book for kids who like history or kids who like slice-of-life stories who you want to get interested in history. If you have a child that falls into one of those categories, then this isn’t a bad choice. It’s also a good bedtime book as it’s not one that I foresee kids begging you to keep reading. I can’t say that I found the story gripping, but it wasn’t a struggle to read and the premise was an interesting one.

Ginny, our Texan lead, gets sent off to England to stay with her anthropologist father who is in the midst of a living history research project. He and several other are pretending to be Iron Age farmers and living on a reconstructed Iron Age farm. The reason Ginny’s stuck there is that her mother was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer and she can no longer care for her daughter while undergoing treatment.

I have to say, if I was Ginny, I would probably have been much more of a brat. She’s forced to give up all modern convenience and exciting summer plans to work as if she was an Iron Age peasant. That’s a hard pill to swallow for an adult, let alone a child, but swallow it she does. There are almost no scenes of her complaining about living on the farm. All of her complaints are the very reasonable ones of “when am I going home?” and “what’s going on with my mother?”

In addition to teaching us about the English Iron Age, the book actually raises the question of how should you treat a child in this situation. It points out that keeping Ginny informed would have saved a lot of headache for everyone. How can a child be expected to behave properly when her mother may be dying and no one will tell her anything beyond the fact that she can’t go home? Those were interesting questions for an adult and the book brought up good points from the child's perspective. It could lead to some good discussion of how to handle such situations in your own family.

Fair warning for parents: the fact that no one will tell her anything does lead to Ginny running away and stealing her dad’s credit card so she can go back to her mother. She isn’t punished for this because her parents realize it’s their fault that she did this since they haven’t told her anything. Once she knows what's going on, she goes back to England without complaint until her mother is recovered enough for her to come home. I’m not sure I agree with that course of action and you might not either, so be aware that’s going to happen before you start reading or give this to your child.

[Trisha · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not bad, more boring. Learning about diferent historical facts was wonderful but the story line is about a bratty girl that, well that's pretty much it, a bratty girl.

[Stephanie A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

How cool does this experience sound? I'm pretty sure it was a lot more fun to experience vicariously than in real time, though, so this book does us all a service.

[Charlotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically this is a thirteen year old kid shoved for months into a playhouse of grownups playing at being Celts. I found it interesting and engrossing, mainly because of all the opportunities to be critical of this "let's live like it's the Iron Age" experiment. I am very impatient with these sorts of immersive endeavors; my two main complaints are that the environment can't be set at "Iron Age" and the participants haven't been brought up by Iron Age parents.

[Nora · Rating 4 out of 5]

In A Time Apart a girl called Virginia (who likes to be called Ginny) has to go to her father that she hardly knows because her mother has breast cancer. Her father is working on a project where he builds a Iron Age farm and lives like the people back then lived with some other people. Ginny wants to go back to her home. But after a while she starts liking the place. She still wants to go home but she shows that she cares about the people at the project by saving a lost 5 year old girl in a storm and by being sad along with the others when 2 people hurt themselves when they fall off a tree. But as she stays there she really enjoys being there. But at the end of her summer vacation she gets her books for school sent to her. She is very mad at her mother for not letting her go home. She gets a woman to drive her to the train station and the woman pays for her to ride on the train to her fathers house. She remembers when she had visited her fathers house to help her get in. But soon she finds out someone is staying there. Ginny calls a boy's girlfriend that had been at the Iron Age project and the girl dresses up like a grown up to get Ginny's suitcase that had been in storage. Ginny goes to the airport with the train and pays the flight wit5h her fathers credit card. but her father catches up with her and they fly to Ginny's home together. They stay with Ginny's mom a while and fly back. Ginny spends another year at the Iron Age project and flies back when her mother feels better. But she has formed a friendship with the people at the Iron Age farm.

The book shows the side of a teenage girl and a lot of what she thinks with many flashbacks. It shows how it is like to have divorced parents and how it is like to be in a totally new place that you don't know. It has a happy ending.

There is a character change in Ginny throughout the story. At the beginning Ginny does not want to be at the Iron Age project but when she stays there a while she starts liking the place more as well as the people. At the end when she leaves forever she feels like the people are part of her family.

[LobsterQuadrille · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was difficult to rate this book for the simple reason that I wasn't entirely sure what I thought of it. I bought it from a thrift store, because the cover and title made it seem like it could be sort of a time-travel fantasy book(something along the lines of Madeleine L'Engle's books), and the quote on the back cover made it seem quite intriguing. However, there was only that quote on the back, and nothing to actually indicate the content of the story. So I acquired it expecting something very different from what it actually was.

This book is really about thirteen-year-old Ginny participating in a university experiment in which a group of people(which includes her father) lives as they would have during the Iron Age. Ginny has to adapt to the new environment, get to know her father better, and deal with her worries about her mother, who has cancer. This is an unusual and interesting premise, but I think that because I expected more of a fantasy story, I ended up a bit disappointed by the actual plot. The character interactions were written very well, especially those between Ginny and her father, Daisy, and Corey. I also liked that the author took the time to include details about things like making the pots and dyeing wool.

However, Ginny made some questionable decisions, and I think that the subplot of her mother being sick distracted too much from the main story. I also wish that the other participants in the experiment, like the Kirklands and the Munsons, had been more developed. As actual characters, they were mostly just skipped over, rarely even making significant appearances.
For the most part, I enjoyed this book, but I think that having it turn out to be so different from what I expected made it rather disappointing for me(there really should have been an actual synopsis on the back cover). I didn't become quite as invested in the story as I would have liked, so while I liked it as a one-time read, I probably wouldn't read it a second time.

[Mary Ni · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Houston teenager girl named Virgina Dorris known to everyone as Ginny. Ginny was send to England to join her father in a Iron Age experiment while her mother recovers from her illiness. At that period of experiment, Ginny experienced the living and social conditions of the Iron Age.In the beginning, Ginny longed for home but as time passess, she begin to appreciate and enjoy the life of being in the Iron Age. She found a apart of herself that she didnt know she had. she made friends with people that she never knew she would make. this was a really good book to read and it was based off a real life experience.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ii liked the premise of the book and that it was different than many of the books I have read in the past little while (did I tell you I am wanting something new and different?). This was a story of a group of people living in an Iron Age village that was an university project. I liked the story in that setting and wish there had been more written of the story in that setting. I liked the characters (although I thought the people got along a bit too well for being forced into close living arrangements). One problem I had was that the author had assigned Ginny the wrong age. Ginny acted more like 15 or 16 but was 13. I want to see if this author has written any other young adult books.

[Larissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A time apart takes place on an iron age farm where scientists try to reconstruct roundhouses, tools and a rustic living. When Ginny's mother is diagnosed with breast cancer, she has no other choice but to send her off to live e with her father in England. Dad has a scientific background and is working on the iron aged farm. Ginny is quick to make friends and is a helpful hand on the farm. Throughout her experiences, she learns the the iron age farm was true, honest and challenging but most of all is a time in her life that she will never forget. Overnight, she becomes indapendedent

[GlowingFalkor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I should have read this years ago. I got it probably 10 years ago when I was still in grade school, but somehow never read it. The main character being a 13 year old girl, it probably would have helped me shift my very juvenile consciousness concerned with the material stuff I had and could get, to a more questioning thought process. I've only just begun to develop a more open consciousness within the past few years. I believe that if children read this book at a semi-early age, it might help immensely with how they see the consumer world around them.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a story about a young woman who visits her father on an archaelogical experiment in the countryside of England. She and her father, along with other re-enactors, live like people from the Bronze Age. It's a simple book, about growing up, unconditional love, and the struggles of living without modern conveniences. Think: "Survivor" without as much drama, and set in the English countryside.

[Ana · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is mostly just a random book read, it's just a story where I don't have to think.

I've read this before, and enjoyed it. I found the copy of the book again, and decided that I wanted to read it again.

[Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Modern girl experiences iron age living archaeology project. She was competent, interested in learning about the project she found herself living in, and wasn’t whiny about it. In short, both likeable and believeable.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just finished this book. It took me a couple of days to read. It was a very easy read, definitely made for junior high age readers. It was fun. It was a fun way to learn a little about history and the adventures of a young girl growing up. It was a cute story, easy read.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ended-1.27.08

[Liaken · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange story of a girl who goes to live with her father in a "recreate the bronze age" experiment.

[Lora · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing

[Michelle Cortez · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was really a GOOD BOOK. i read it wen i was younger. really good.

[Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

it was great

[Quazelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good exploration of feelings of a young person dealing with a family crisis.

[Earth · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was dumb but in a way it was ok as well. She was a little spoil how she acted toward her mom.

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Pacing was odd, but quite interesting!