Dianne K. Salerni – Middle Grade SF
When Jadie, now 13, was a baby, she was rescued from a fatal accident by a group of beings from fourth-dimensional space. In return, she now does jobs for them, being teleported into a situation to carry out a very specific task and then being yanked away. Sometimes the tasks are benign, sometimes they seem bad (like grabbing a stranger’s purse and throwing it into traffic), and often there doesn’t seem to be any point to them at all. She and the rest of her family (assembled from other rescues) just have to trust that the 4-space-occupying Sages, who can, after all, see our entire dimension from the outside, have calculated everything so that her actions will ultimately work out for the best. Until she messes up a mission, stays too long, and begins to piece together what the Sages are really trying to accomplish…
This book’s Amazon copy describes it as a cross between A Wrinkle in Time and Flatland. That’s apt, but an even more accurate comparison is to the works of William Sleator, in particular his 1986 book The Boy Who Reversed Himself. The book even slips in an homage to Sleator’s classic Interstellar Pig. I’m a big Sleator fan, so I was instantly drawn in and couldn’t put it down. This book would also appeal to anyone who enjoyed Christopher Edge’s The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day or The Many Worlds of Albie Bright, which also make brain-twisting science concept accessible to a middle grade audience. It’s also a solid “question authority, because it’s probably lying through its 4D hyperteeth” book, and kids need as many of those as they can get.
You can get Jadie in Five Dimensions from Bookshop, Barnes and Noble, or Amazon, or check with your local library! If they don’t have it on the shelves, they can probably retrieve a copy from 4-space.
Steph Cherrywell 