Rewind by Ian Page

This book was recommended by one of my students, and I gave it a rating of 4 out of 5. It reminded me a bit of Back to the Future. The main character, Liam, wants to create a band even though none of his band members have any talent. The group enters a battle of the bands contest where Liam "dies" in an accident. He awakens back in time, five months before his birth actually. His ghost is able to communicate with Welly, a junk shop owner he met while still alive. Liam is able to watch his teenage parents and discovers they were once in a band together. Liam decides the mission of his ghost is to stop the death of a band member, with Welly's help, but the final outcome is surprising yet predictable.

I enjoyed the twists in the plot as Welly flip-flops between believing he's talking to a ghost and then believing he's actually nuts. The novel has a nice message and is not a topic usually written about. My biggest concern was a slowish beginning to the book. It gets much more interesting once Liam "dies". I had a couple of other small questions about how the author wrote the book. Why did the author have a little girl see Liam when his ghost first appeared? No one else besides Welly could see him, and the little girl never reenters the plot. Also, why is Liam's ghost trapped inside rooms? He was stuck in his future mother's house all night until someone opened a door for him. Not very ghostlike.