Me, Myself and I [Hardcover]

Jane Louise Curry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 31, 1987

A Sixteen-year-old Progidy uses his mentor's invention to go into the past to exorcise his unreturned love for a beautiful girl, and discovers a mystery involving another of the professor's inventions.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Precocious whiz kid J.J. Russell knows he's a lucky guy. At 16, he's the only graduate student selected to work as research assistant for the brilliant Professor Poplov. What's more, J.J. is well on his way to inventing a computer program chip that will make him a fortune. And he's been going out with gorgeous, blonde Polly for four blissful years. But then slick Max Sharp inventsand sellsa chip that's nearly identical to J.J.'s. And on the very same day, J.J. discovers that Polly has been dating Max on the sly. Broken-hearted, J.J. goes to the lab to drown his sorrows in work. There he stumbles on Professor Poplov's most secret inventiona machine that can send people back in time. Impulsively, J.J. sends himself into the past and comes face to face with Jacko and Mutt, his 12- and eight-year-old selves, respectively. J.J., Jacko and Mutt team up to solve a mystery and make some big changes in their shared future: bad guys are disposed of and good guys get their reward. J.J.'s good-natured, wisecracking narration unravels the complicated plot with ease and keeps this story moving at a rapid clip. Lots of fun. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 7-8 All this book has to offer is silly characters in a lightweight story combined with a difficult concept.Through the use of Professor Poplov's time machine, boy wonder J. J. Russell goes back to his childhood to fix up his romance with the insuffrable Polly Armbruster. He teams up with his younger selves to discover the industrial spies who have been stealing inventions from the university, and, in the course of that, discovers that Polly isn't worth his interest. While the characterization is on the level of a '50s sci-fi movie, as is the scientific gadgetry, the plot, with its back-and-forth shifts in time, is intricate and fairly difficult to follow. The preoccupation with avoiding the paradox of changing one's past from a future dependent on that past gets in the way of the mystery and adventure. The exploration of the paradox pushes the readership up to junior high where the story and characters will seem awfully juvenile. The jacket illustration fits the older group but only a few of them will stick with the story. Carolyn Caywood, Virginia Beach Pub . Lib .
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 184 pages
• Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry; First Edition edition (October 31, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0689504292
• ISBN-13: 978-0689504297
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,034,588 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It was really an enjoyment, February 20, 2003

By 

Riley (Kansas City, KS USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Me, Myself and I (Hardcover)

Have you ever read a book about time travel and just thought it was a good story because it has a pretty basic plot? Let me tell you something about this book. It eats your brain out. You constantly find yourself stopping to think about details of what would happen to the "future you" if this happened to you because he does so much to possibly change his current life. Yet of course, that's a good thing in this case. This book is about a sixteen-year-old kid named J.J. who is an assistant to Professor Poplov who helps him with his projects. While the professor is gone J.J. guesses the code to the security panel on the secret closet where professor Poplov keeps all of his secret projects. He discovers in the closet a time machine. Testing it out he accidentally goes back four years. He stumbles into his old self and is followed to the labs. He from then on calls this him Jacko. Jacko follows him forward to present time where they see strange people on the roof. They rush back six years to warn the professor. While there they run into Mutt. Mutt is J.J. but six years younger. After solving the problem the two older J.J.s go home.
All of the problems in this story came one after another and soon led to the end. I liked the style of writing most of all. The way the author wrote the story is the same way I write. I also liked how it made me think. It kind of confused me sometimes. The last of the story is written from Mutt's point of view. Mutt then begins to rewrite his future in a whole different way. This book really puts readers right in the story.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A really good book!, February 13, 2002

By 

The Cool Guy (The City, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Me, Myself and I (Hardcover)

I remember reading this when I was a kid. I always thought it was a pretty neat book. Time travel is always a cool thing to read about, and this one is pretty good too. One of the best things I remember is writing a letter to the author. She wrote me a full-length letter back! For an 11-year-old kid, that's quite a thrill. I recommend this book for any children's book library.