Well, Haddix is so bang-you-over the head with the point, but this was pretty good anyway.
13 year old Jessie lives with her parents in 1840's Indiana, in a small frontier town. Children being dying of diptheria, and her mother, the town midwife, tells Jessie that she needs to get help from outside- that it's really 1996, and that their entire world is a tourist attraction, and that all the adults had volunteered to 'live in the 1840's" for various reasons of their own. Jessie has to deal with that, and with the modern world, to try to find out why they are being denied modern medicine.
Interesting idea, but Haddix isn't the kind of writer that makes it alive- the idea is great, the story is cool, but the words and dialogue feel stale and dated already. (the whole 1840's thing aside). Funnily enough though, I did watch that "Colonial House" show on PBS where the people volunteered to live like the Plymouth settlers, and wondered about the ethics involved with the kids on that show, so I guess Haddix was on to something.
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