MG review of Time Villains by Victor Pineiro

Time Villains by Victor Piñeiro
Format:  E-ARC
Publisher:  Sourcebooks for Young Readers
Number of pages:  320

Publishing: July 16th, 2021

Source:  Publisher

Opening Lines:  "We found the table in some weird antique flea market."

Time Villians is the debut of a new series by author Victor Piñeiro, it's time travel with a twist on the classic question, "what three people, real or fictional, living or dead would you invite for dinner if you had the chance?"  

6th grader Javi Santiago loves to cook, sandwiches of all kinds are his specialty.  School, not so much.  Javi is really close to failing English when his teacher assigns the dreaded "which three guests would you invite to dinner" assignment.  Given the assignment is worth triple the points, Javi decides that he has to come up with a stellar guest list to impress his teacher and get an A+ to pass her class.   Enlisting the help of his best friend, Wiki and younger sister Brady, Javi sets the table, selects the guests, and prepares his most fabulous dish.  But then Brady finds a mysterious dinner bell hidden in a secret compartment of the table and upon ringing the bell actually brings their three fictional and historical guests to the table.  Young Mozart, John Montagu, aka the Earl of Sandwich and Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard the infamous Pirate are just as surprised as the three kids to suddenly appear.  After the dinner party is over,  chaos ensues when Blackbeard refuses to return to his time period.  Instead, he vows to bring back more pirates and take over their town.   Set at the fictional castle, Finistere, now turned into a school in Maryland the trio will have to draw help from their teachers and pull famous people thru time to track down and trick Blackbeard into going back.  

Time Villians includes a diverse cast of characters, Javi and Brady are Puerto Rican and Wiki is Haitian American.  There's lovely mentions of Puerto Rican inspired dishes made from fried plantains like tostone's and a jibarito sandwich.  Finistere, makes for a zany school, think something like Wayside Stories meets Story Thieves and Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library.  And the trio's teachers will remind you of some other fictional characters from books.   The time travel aspects and premise are interesting, bringing to mind the question of what happens when changes are made in the past and how it might impact the future?  Readers will also enjoy all the various literary and historical characters and those interested can see a complete listing for all of the characters mentioned in the story in Wiki's Pedia of information at the back of the book.  Overall this made for a fun debut, although I am curious what will happen next as the premise includes the magical table bringing people from the past and I would think that they learned their lesson about who they might invite in the future.  Although the possibilities are limitless.  **A huge thank you to Ashlyn Keil at Sourcebooks for the E-ARC**