The Infinite

by Patience Agbabi

Overview

“What an inspiration. The future just got so much better” ― Benjamin Zephaniah

FIGHT CRIME, ACROSS TIME!

The Infinite is a mind-bending, time-twisting adventure for readers who loved TIME TRAVELLING WITH A HAMSTER and A WRINKLE IN TIME. The first book in THE LEAP CYCLE series.

Leaplings, children born on the 29th of February, are very rare. Rarer still are Leaplings with The Gift – the ability to leap through time. Elle Bíbi-Imbelé Ifíè has The Gift, but she’s never used it. Until now.

On her twelfth birthday, Elle and her best friend, Big Ben, travel to the Time Squad Centre in 2048. Elle has received a mysterious warning from the future. Other Leaplings are disappearing in time – and not everyone at the centre can be trusted.

Soon Elle’s adventure becomes more than a race through time. It’s a race against time. She must fight to save the world as she knows it – before it ceases to exist . . .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781786899651
Publisher:	Canongate Books
Publication date:	05/02/2023
Series:	The Leap Cycle , #1
Edition description:	Main
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.08(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.67(d)
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

About the Author

Patience Agbabi was born in London in 1965 to Nigerian parents, spent her teenage years living in North Wales and now lives in Kent with her husband and children. She has been writing poetry for over twenty years, The Infinite is her first novel. Like Elle, she loves sprinting, numbers and pepper soup, but, disappointingly, her leaping is less spectacular.

The Infinite is the first book in The Leap Cycle series.

Editorial Reviews

05/08/2023

British Nigerian Elle Bíbi-Imbelé Ifíè, who is autistic, is a Leapling: someone born on February 29. Now that’s she’s approaching her seventh year at Intercalary International—a top secret boarding school for the 0.6 % of Leaplings who have what Elle calls The Gift—she’s finally allowed to use the time-travel ability she’s cultivated at school to participate on a class trip to 2048. Once there, she’ll tour Time Squad Headquarters, home to an elite team of time travelers responsible for maintaining order across all time. It’s there that Elle and her math-savvy best friend Big Ben—who reads as white and is also autistic—learn that Leaplings have been disappearing across myriad timelines. Teaming up with a Leapling named Ama who’s searching for her missing brother, Elle and Big Ben endeavor to piece together the clues and save the vanished Leaplings. Occasionally leaning on familiar tropes when developing the variously neurodivergent cast, debut author Agbabi nevertheless delivers a layered, time-bending adventure through Elle’s astute and cheeky narration, intertwining a clever mystery with lightly ecologically focused problem-solving. Ages 9–11. (May)

Publishers Weekly

The Infinite is vivid, funny, exciting and inventive. But there are books that are all those things and still don't work. This works brilliantly, and the characters are so delightful that I don't think anyone could fail to like them. I was so fond of Elle and Big Ben that I'd have followed them anywhere. Patience Agbabi has created something fresh and original here, and I look forward very much to what she writes next

Philip Pullman

Exactly as brilliant as I thought it would be. An exciting, bold, witty and magical book

KATHERINE RUNDELL

Fans of Hayley Long's Sophie Someone will love this imaginative time-travelling caper which follows 12-year-old Leaping Elle. A nail-biting adventure!

JULIA FORSTER

Astonishing . . . I can't stop thinking about it, everyone should read it. It's rich and diverse and just brilliant

FLEUR HITCHCOCK

A fascinating, original and smart adventure tale with a rhythmic prose style that leaps off the page into scintillating life. It has a magic all of its own

BERNARDINE EVARISTO

Elle is an engaging, self-aware character . . . and the environmental theme will strike a chord with young readers

Guardian

The Infinite is so adventurous that it lit up parts of my brain I didn't know I had. Patience Agbabi has caused a wonderful supernova deep in the literary universe . . . Elle is curious, questioning and fearless. What an inspiration. The future just got so much better

BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH

This time-travelling tale is a thrilling adventure with brilliant characters. Imaginative, unusual, exciting and funny

The Week Junior

Highly original . . . It's 2048 and kids have gone missing. It's up to Elle and a cadre of friends to unravel what's really going on across time

Observer

In this inventive, mind-boggling tale, Agbabi introduces us to Elle - determined, autistic, time-travelling crimefighter - whose voice will charm and astonish readers everywhere

STEVE TASANE