[A] fantasy that makes for exciting reading is Saturday the Twelfth of October. Zan Ford is a fourteen-year-old growing up in today's New York City complete with muggings, family squabbles, and impersonal relationships. Through an unexplained time warp, Zan is removed from Mechanix Park and set down in the same spot during the Stone Age. She is in almost a Garden of Eden. There is laughter, honesty, and people touching and relating to each other. When tempers flair, a hollering match is held to relieve tension and solve the problem. But as the story unfolds, violence and selfishness are introduced through a shiny knife that Zan happened to have in her pocket when she went through the time warp. Whether or not the people's lives will ever be the same after Zan returns to the present could be the basis for an exciting class discussion.

Alleen Pace Nilsen...