Time Slip Tuesday-- Beswitched

Time Slip Tuesday is a recurring feature over at Charlotte's Library. Charlotte also posts a weekly round up of middle grade sci fi and fantasy book reviews as well as a monthly list of new releases. Definitely check out her blog if you haven't already.

Saunders, Kate. Beswitched.
Flora is not happy that her parents are sending her off to the posh Penrice academy so that they can go to Italy, collect her ailing grandmother, and install her in their home in Wimbledon, especially since her grandmother has always lead a profligate life and not really cared about Flora. On the train to the school, Flora hears strange voices while she is sleeping... and wakes up in 1935. Several roommates have found an old book of spells and summoned her. Flora is even more unhappy about this turn of events, especially since she has never studied Latin and has to wear horrible clothes and use soap to wash her hair. Her roommates help her navigate the strange and sometimes trying oddities of school life at this time, and she starts to think that 1935 is not so bad. She knows that she has to get home, though, and once she does, she learns some interesting things about her family and her grandmother that would not have been clear to her without her adventure.
Strengths: *Sigh* I loved everything about this. Time travel, British boarding school, reconnecting with grandparents-- all there. The mode of time travel made sense, and why shouldn't Flora have come into that time in period dress? She was really switching places with another girl. Reminded me very strongly of Charlotte Sometimes.
Weaknesses: I'm still getting nose wrinkles from my students when I suggest time travel books.