Matt's Gift is a young adult sci-fi mystery in which the past heals the present. After losing his parents on 9/11, fourteen-year-old Matt Collier accompanies a mysterious man, known to him as the Time Keeper, to the 1960 World Series where he participates as the batboy for his beloved NY Yankees in their electrifying game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Even though he fears getting trapped in the past and never seeing his girlfriend Meggie again, he cannot turn down the Time Keeper's invitation. Baseball fans will appreciate the play-by-play reenactment of that famous game as Matt tries to alter history. He assumes his mission in the past is to secure victory for his team. It is only when he returns to the present that he understands why he was chosen to be a time traveler and how the gift given to him is actually one for all of us. Matt's Gift uses baseball as a metaphor for time and the passage of life. It shows how memories, photographs, and stories help assuage the pain of death and enable us to travel though time and grasp again what has been taken from us. Its depiction of how grief can be turned to joy will appeal to readers of all ages who want an uplifting story. "It's the kind of book that generations can share to both help cement their ties and ease their separation. It is a story that enables us to help recapture the past," says Professor Jonathan Boyarin of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.