Time Slip, Time Travel or Moving through a Portal to another World

Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds

A colleague asked me today for books where the characters move into another world. Of course there are the obvious choices of Alice in Wonderland and Narnia but this teacher, who is working in a school library, needed other ideas.  I started my hunt and came up with quite a few. I'd love to hear from you in the comments if you have other books which match this topic.

I will begin with three Picture Books:

The Tunnel by Anthony Browne 

Zathura by Chris van Allsburg 

The Hero of Little Street by Gregory Rogers

My friend also reminded me about this breathtaking wordless trilogy:

You can see a video of Journey; and Quest; and here is the Walker Books trailer for Return. Here is a set of teachers notes compiled by Aaron Becker. Just Imagine have a set of ideas. 

Here are some series which may still be in your school or local library:

Time warp Trio series by Jon Scieszka (see above)

The Time Travelling Cat series by Julia Jarman

The Magic Treehouse series by Mary Pope Osborne

Whatever After series by Sara Mlynowski

The Timeslip series by Belinda Murrell

Now for some Middle Grade and senior Primary level novels.

The time traveller and the tiger by Tania Unsworth

Olive of Groves by Katrina Nannestead

With my Knife by Andrew Lansdown

Tom's midnight garden by Philippa Pearce

Howl’s moving castle Diana Wynne Jones

The secret library of Hummingbird house by Julianne Negri

Tricky Nick by Nicholas Johnson

The Root cellar by Janet Lunn 

Cicada summer by Kate Constable

The Time tree by Enid Richmont

The four seasons of Lucy Mackenzie by Kirsty Murray

The Children Next Door by Gene Ure

The Future Trap by Catherine Jinks

The Shadow Guests by Joan Aiken

Stig of the dump by Clive King

The 13th Floor by Sid Fleischman

The Word Hunters by Nick Earls

The puzzle ring by Kate Forsyth

On the blue comet by Rosemary Wells

King of Shadows by Susan Cooper

The Train to impossible place by PG Bell

When you reach me by Rebecca Stead

A clock of Stars by Frances Gibbons

The Halfmen of O by Maurice Gee

The Song from somewhere else by AF Harrold (Mature readers only)

The girl who Circumnavigated Fairy Land by C. Valente

Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins and sequels

The Griffin Gate by Vashti Hardy

The Riddle of the Tumpalar by Judy Bernard- Waite

Fast forward by Jenny Pausacker

Timeslip by Diana Chase

A wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle

Somewhere around the corner by Jackie French

Timesnatch by Robert Swindells

The other aspect of this question would be to make an exploration of the way the characters move through time - is it through a door; a cupboard; on a train; in a time machine; by touching a special object; travelling in a lift; or through the back of a cave? Your students could write a time travel or a time slip story where they invent a different way for the characters to move through time. Perhaps you remember an old book by Emily Rodda called Finders Keepers where the boy moved into the television screen.

Finally I will mention this very old book.  Someone asked about it on a Facebook group recently and I must stay parts of the plot do still linger with me.  This is long out of print and it is most unlikely to still be held in a school library but it might give you a "blast from the past." I have put the two covers. Sorry one is rather out of focus - it was the best image I could find. My memory is that this was a very funny story with a crazy woolly mammoth and a terrific time machine.