Harding's Luck

Dickie Harding is twelve years old, crippled by a fall, and trapped in a gray London house with an aunt who barely acknowledges his existence. His only companions are a battered toy soldier named Tinkler and the impossible hope that somewhere, somehow, his life could be different. When a mysterious creature called the Mouldiwarp appears in the garden, Dickie discovers he can slip backward through time itself, into centuries of English history where he might find what the present denies him: belonging, purpose, even love. But each journey into the past brings its own dangers, and Dickie begins to wonder whether he's running toward something or simply fleeing from the loneliness that defines his daily life. E. Nesbit weaves a tender, often bittersweet tale of a boy who refuses to accept the small, tragic life others have assigned him, proving that even in the darkest circumstances, a child can shape his own destiny.