"...the labyrinth was empty. Dean had disappeared."

Okay, time travel fans, The Blackhope Enigma by Teresa Flavin is a good one for you.  Dean's just goofing around as he walks through the labyrinth in Blackhope Tower, but poof!  He disappears, and his sister Sunni is shocked to see him IN a nearby painting, done centuries ago by the mystical artist Fausto Corvo.  So Sunni goes in after him, as does her classmate Blaise and (uh-oh) bad guy Angus.  Soon they're crossing through different layers of the painting, ending up in different lands, encountering some nasty creatures, meeting others "inside" the painting, and having one heck of an adventure as they desperately try to figure out how to get back home. Who can be trusted?  Parts of the story were a bit confusing, but many readers will enjoy the pace and action.

Teeny tiny adventure

I'm ready to go back to the Art Institute of Chicago before after reading The Sixty-Eight Rooms by Marianne Malone.  Ruthie and Jack are on a field trip to the Art Institute when they see the exhibit called the Thorne Rooms - 68 miniature rooms that show different times in U.S. and European history.  They discover a magical key that can shrink them down to a height of five inches, just the right size for exploring the rooms.  They're surprised to find out that they aren't the first people to do this, and they're even more shocked to discover that they can actually enter the periods of time that the rooms represent.  Details of the rooms are fascinating, and it's fun to read how Ruthie and Jack solve problems that come up when they're so small.  Fans of Chasing Vermeer or From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler will appreciate this teeny tiny adventure.

For Twilight fans

No, there aren't any vampires, but I still think fans of Twilight would also like Through Her Eyes by Jennifer Archer.  Tansy, her mom, and her grandfather (Papa Dan) have just moved to a Papa Dan's hometown in Texas, and they're living in an old, creepy house that is supposedly haunted.  Tansy discovers a beautiful box containing a pocket watch, a crystal, and a poetry journal; she's sure they belonged to Henry, a troubled teen who committed suicide while living in Tansy's house long ago.  Tansy is a photographer, and she soon starts to see strange images through her camera lens - black and white, rather than color, and people that she knows are Henry and Papa Dan, as a youth.  They were friends?  She then finds that with the help of the watch and crystal, she can actually enter the world and time of the two.  Why is she so attracted to Henry?  Why is Papa Dad so upset to be back in his hometown?  And most of all...is Tansy losing her mind? Hmmm......

Found a great one!

The action, adventure, and time travel in Found by Margaret Peterson Haddix had me hooked from the start! A plane mysteriously appears at an airport, and the only passengers are thirty-six babies...not an adult - even a pilot - in sight. Thirteen years later, two 13-year-old friends, Jonah and Chip start receiving threatening messages like, "Beware! They're coming back to get you." Jonah thinks it has something to do with the fact that he's adopted, and soon Chip learns that he's adopted as well. The boys learn that the FBI was involved with their adoptions, and together with Jonah's sister, Katherine, the three find out about lists of "Survivors" and "Witnesses," see two people appear or disappear, and end up in a time travel trap in a cliffhanger ending. This fast-paced and thought-provoking book is the first in the Missing series; Sent is on the shelves, and Sabotaged will be published in August 2010.