Time is right for author Richard Ungar's latest book

Time is right for author Richard Ungar's latest book. North York resident Richard Ungar has a new book entitled, 'Time Snatchers'. Photo/COURTESY

The Bathurst Street and Lawrence Avenue area resident was taking a children's writing class at George Brown College a decade ago when he and his fellow students were asked to write a story based on a black and white drawing titled Another Place, Another Time.

"When I saw that picture, I thought of time travel," Ungar said. "I started writing the book and wrote for a few years, but it didn't click. I took a look at the story again and there was one chapter I wanted to expand on. I re-wrote the whole novel and told a completely different story."

Time Snatchers is set in the year 2061. A group of orphans is taken in by a man named Uncle, who has discovered the secret of time travel and trains the youngsters to be time snatchers.

"They go back in time and take mementos from the past to sell to Uncle's clients," Ungar said. "They steal the world's first photograph."

But not all is well among the orphans, as they deal with in-house fighting and Uncle's increasing insanity, Ungar said.

Main character Caleb desires a normal life and sets out to break free from his situation. But can he find normalcy in the outside world?

"I see a lot of myself in Caleb, the guy I wanted to be when I was 13," Ungar said.

Ungar, a practising corporate lawyer by profession, said he spends about an hour each night writing and is working on a sequel to Time Snatchers.

An accomplished children's book author, Ungar, who studied painting at the Ontario College of Art and Design, wrote his first book, Rachel Captures the Moon, in 2001. The follow-up, Rachel's Gift, was published two years later, followed by Rachel's Library in 2004. Even Higher, an adaptation of I.L. Peretz's Jewish folktale If Not Higher, was published in 2007.

Time Snatchers will be released March 15 by Putnam/Penguin.

For more information, visit www.richard-ungar.com