Rachel Finch is twelve years old and in love—not with a neighborhood boy, but with the Dewey decimal system, call numbers and the cellophane covers of library books . . . also with time travel, a superhero she knows only as S-Man and, above all, Franz Kafka. She considers herself a very different young girl—until she makes the acquaintance of a classmate who challenges that sense of otherness.

In this utterly inventive debut novel, we are irresistibly drawn into a world where Rachel, who many years later narrates our story, has begun to lead a double life. Severely asthmatic and deemed bookish and delicate by her family, she takes clandestine time-bending excursions with S-Man to rescue some of history’s greatest literary geniuses. Swooping in on Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde and Chinua Achebe, among others, Rachel’s rescue missions are a rollicking ride through literary history, while her day-to-day life in Teaneck, New Jersey, emotively reflects the civil rights movement in 1960s America.

Writing with a confidence, intelligence and playfulness rare for a first-time novelist, Beth Bosworth has given us a book brimming with magical realism and boundless imagination, in which literary references, great humor and political consciousness fully blossom into a significance far beyond the grasp of a twelve-year-old girl. Witty and wise, with deftly rendered shadings of the heart, Tunneling is at once boldly fanciful and remarkably down-to-earth.

“Inspired . . . With wit and style, young Rachel Finch dreams her way into the lives of Franz Kafka, Oscar Wilde, and the great Shakespeare himself, who makes her feel that she rightly belongs in Elizabethan London rather than Teaneck, New Jersey.”Chicago Tribune

“Lots of ?reworks, literal and literary . . . theatrical and dazzling.”
Kirkus Reviews

The year is 1968, and 12-year-old Rachel Finch is finding that life in Teaneck, New Jersey, is getting more complicated every day. Weaving the threads of Rachel's two lives with a sure hand, Bosworth creates a coming-of-age story that is at once boldly fanciful and sweetly down-to-earth.

The year is 1968, and twelve-year-old Rachel Finch is finding that life in Teaneck, New Jersey, is getting more complicated every day. The school board has just voted to integrate the high school, stirring up unsettling reactions in the community; her homelife with an overbearing father, nervous mother, and rebellious sister is also astir with inexplicable rumblings; and debilitating bouts of asthma only increase Rachel's sense of powerlessness. Reading--and discussing the wonders of the Dewey decimal system with a like-minded friend--offers an escape from the pressures of everyday life. But there is nothing as glorious and empowering as her nightly excursions with S-Man, the superhero who escorts her across time and space to lend a helping hand to Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Chinua Achebe, and other famous authors struggling with writer's block. Weaving the threads of Rachel's two lives with a sure hand and a boundless imagination, Beth Bosworth creates a coming-of-age story that is at once boldly fanciful and sweetly down-to-earth.