Time Slip Tuesday: Cousins in the Time of Magic

Time Slip Tuesday is a long running feature at Charlotte's Library, and the reason most of my fantasy posts occur on Tuesdays! 

Otheguy, Emma.  Cousins in the  Time of Magic 

February 25, 2025 by Atheneum Books for Young Readers 

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

Cousins Jorge, Camila, and Siggy live in Miami and often are "babysat" by their Tia Xia, who doesn't watch them all that closely, even when one of them takes a dare from local bully Cooper to do a handstand on the roof in the rain. Cooper is having a Cinco de Maya party, but Tia Xia tells the kids that they don't understand the true meaning of Cinco de Maya. When the kids find a sword, and Camilla head is stuck in a pot, they find that their aunt's yard is a time travel portal, and soon find themselves in Virginia in the 1800s. They are on a boat, being chased by an Ironclad, and while they have a fuzzy message on their cell phone to contact Frederico, they lose sight of their aunt. They are soon helped by Alphonso, who says his father is Frederico, and he's an office from the Union army whose hydrogen balloon went off course. Oscar, whose family is enslaved, takes the kids to a plantation that is serving as military headquarters, hoping to find him. When they do, they find that their aunt was trying to get a magical sword to Zaragoza, who must defeat the French. They take a balloon to Pubela City to meet up with Tia Xia, but Siggy is captured and Camila and Jorge meet Pascuala, an indigenous girl who tries to help them. Will the Mexicans be able to prevail against their European colonizers?
Strengths: This had some interesting historical perspective on parts of history tangential to some things I already knew. The inclusion of the hydrogen balloons was particularly intriguing, and I liked that there were notes at the back of the book explaining if the characters were real or fictional. I was a huge fan of the 1980s television show VOYAGERS! so love the idea of traveling back in time to change history.
Weaknesses: I would love to see a historical novel about this time period without the fantasy elements; I read this book last night, and this morning the first thing that popped into my mind was that Zaragoza used a magical sword to win the Mexican-American war. Not quite the takeaway I wanted.
What I really think: This is a good choice for readers who enjoyed Gutman's The Fabulous Four or Messner's Ranger in time series, but want a Latine perspective on history.