The Time Box

A sixth grade field trip to the local planetarium provides more questions than answers for Thomas Adkins Johnson, a twelve-year-old going on thirteen, whose head begins to spin as he contemplates the vastness of the heavens projected on the dome above him. The field trip marks Tommy’s transition from sixth grade, where his major concerns centered on school and vacation, sports and gaming, to a more complex world where questions of identity and belief take hold of the imagination. Tommy and his friends—Micky Boonaling. Kareem Brooks, Mignon Eubanks, and others—tackle the challenges of seventh grade with a mixture of humor and bewilderment. When Tommy’s uncle Aaron dies unexpectedly in a motorcycle accident, the boy’s questions about life take a deeper, more complicated form, and Tommy begins to search for a way to create meaning in his life, a search encouraged by his friend, Mignon. The solution they create takes the two of them on a heart-warming adventure, tinged with the bitter-sweet desires of young romance.