The main protagonists are twins, who were abandoned at birth. They were left in a basket behind a pew in a church.The person who found them and immediately whisked them off to the orphanage, named the brown skinned boy, Pew Church and white skinned girl, Basket Church. 

When the story begins they have been in the orphanage for 12 years. The orphanage is a huge, monstrous building, cold and satanic. But, although it is enormous with dozens of classrooms, eleven 50-bed dormitories, a massive kitchen and dining room with 48 staff, the twins are the only orphans living there. 

Their conditions are dire. They are given stale food to eat, wash with icy cold water, their room is locked at night and they have bars on their windows. 

The twins are taught English, Latin, Music, Art, History, Geography, amongst other subjects, but by unqualified teachers, from monumentally complex text books designed for PhD students, not 12 year old children. Their schooldays is long only finishing at four o'clock. 

After school they have to complete their homework, their chores, eat their dinner and complete any punishment. They are then entitled to visit the Recreational Room, filled with lots of toys and games, which closes at 8pm every night. 

In all their days, they have never been able to use the Recreational Room. But they do spend time in the evening, by candle light, painting dots on tens of thousands of white cubes, turning them into dice.

One day, a package, not from Amazon, was pushed through the bars of their window and landed on the floor. Curious, they opened it to find a flat hat, a collapsible top hat. 

Then a funny thing happened as they pushed the hat through. The hat started to vibrate. A swirling took place around the entrance to the hat and a man emerged. He said he was a time traveller and had been searching for the twins for twelve years. He explained that time travellers have to find round objects into which they can jump and there must be a round object at the end of the journey, too.

He pointed out that EVERYTHING in the orphanage was square, absolutely everything. They said they had noticed this and wondered why, but the fact that it was to prevent time travel in or out of the building, had never crossed their minds. So no time travellers could enter... which is why the hat was poked through the bars. 

The man said he had been commissioned to find the twins by an unknown benefactor and gave them a very sketchy, short history of his time travel experience over the past decade. He said now that he had found them, he had a present for each. 

He explained they were born, literally, with a silver spoon in their mouths. Well, Pew had a spoon, Basket had a fork which he gave them. As he was preparing to leave via the top hat, Basket caught hold of his foot, then grabbed Pew, and they both followed the man into the hat and to an unknown location and time...

...and so the adventure started, back in the time of the American Revolutionary war of 1777.

The authors have done a terrific job explaining in great detail, certain aspects of that long war, including some facts I didn't know. They use full pages of explanation, together with very fine illustrations by Chris Schweizer.

Much of the story is written with humour, wit and charm and Monty Pythonesque in parts, which I loved.

A great read and page turner, I'm sure you will enjoy it, too.

The author

JAMES PATTERSON is one of the best-known and biggest-selling writers of all time. His books have sold in excess of 375 million copies worldwide. James is passionate about encouraging children to read. Inspired by his own son who was a reluctant reader, he also writes a range of books for young readers, including the Middle School, I Funny, Treasure Hunters, House of Robots, Confessions, and Maximum Ride series. James has donated millions in grants to independent bookshops and has been the most borrowed author of adult fiction in UK libraries for the past eleven years in a row. He lives in Florida with his wife and son.