Diego and the Rangers of the Vastlantic

Gr 5–8—More than 100 eye-catching full-color illustrations showcase this fantasy's diverse cast of characters and their world of seagoing dinosaurs, horse-drawn carriages, flying skateboards, and giant robots. Thirteen-year-old Diego Ribera lives in the coastal city of New Chicago on an Earth cataclysmically transformed by the Time Collision. Continents have moved, and the Vastlantic Ocean has overtaken the eastern third of the United States. The Collision brought several periods of time together, and the resulting mixture of animals, people, and technology from many eras has created a politically unstable world. A faction from ancient Rome kidnaps the protagonist's father as part of a violent plot to reverse the Collision, and in the ensuing chaos a pirate ship picks up Diego and three companions. The rest of this sprawling novel follows the newly dubbed Rangers of the Vastlantic as they attempt to rescue the teen's father and defeat the Romans. The writing is less polished than the illustrations, and a character list would have been helpful for readers trying to keep track of the massive cast. While the racial diversity of the main characters is welcome, it's disappointing that the only black female Ranger ends up as the pirate ship's cook while others become a navigator, pilot, and ship's engineer.