Jason Rascal's Spring in Time

Seasonal Dreamworld #1

by Neale Osborne (illustrator)

Jason ‘Jase’ Rascal is just an ordinary eleven-year-old. His daydreams, however, are quite another story - for whenever Jase dozes off he enters bizarre parallel worlds where he often seems to find himself in very real danger …

Season One: 'Spring in Time' (or 'The Lost World of Strudel Wood')

On a day out to a local wood, a dozy Jase idly wanders through a dream-gate and enters a world of extinct beasts: mossy rhinoceroses, sabertooth tigers, mastodons, and weird wooden dinosaurs that seem to grow from the trees around him … It’s Jase against Time!
Stuck in this perilous prehistoric past, Jase has to find his way back to present day reality - before he himself becomes extinct!

Funny, fast-paced, and full of mad adventure, Jase’s strange escapades will thrill children of all ages - and eras.

90 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 2015

About the author

Writer and illustrator Neale Osborne was born in July 1970.
His debut children’s novel 'Lydia’s Tin Lid Drum' was published by Oxford University Press in 2009, with an exotic sequel 'Lydia's Golden Drum' following in 2013.
('Tin Lid Drum' was later revised and retitled 'Lydia's Enchanted Toffee'.)
'The Castle of Desires' is a novel for older readers, set in 1930s California … and in the chambers of an enchanted fortress.
More recently, Neale has written and illustrated articles for online classical music magazine Liner Notes; a piece on Soviet opera films was published in 2023, followed by an appreciation of the music of Italian composer Malipiero, of Rimsky-Korsakov's opera 'Mlada', and an article looking at Maria Callas on film; In 2025, Neale also wrote a detailed listening guide to Carl Nielsen's enchanting score for 'Aladdin'.

Reviews

[Neale Osborne]

The first in a trilogy of illustrated novelettes features eleven-year-old ‘Jase’ Rascal - an ordinary boy with an extraordinary tendency to doze off and find himself in parallel dreamworlds. But these are daydreams with a difference, with only one ‘logical’ way to escape - a way that Jase has to work out for himself while travelling through the changing landscapes. A simple idea, but one that means his fantasies are potentially dangerous ‘realities’, ones from which he may never wake! So the scene is set for this spring-themed adventure where the further Jase travels through his local wood, the more prehistoric the wildlife becomes …
‘Spring in Time’ started life as an Alice-like ramble full of plantmen, weird hybrid creatures, a Shrovetide Fair run by bears, a cuckoo clock in the clouds, and a meeting with the May Queen; but, once I concentrated on the prehistoric section, and added a boy protagonist, the whole thing became less random, less whimsical in tone, and produced a more satisfying read - especially once I’d packed it with pictures!
Indeed, despite the numerous line illustrations (of dinosaurs, and other extinct wildlife) there are no pictures of Jase himself - a deliberate decision as I didn’t want to impose a specific look on the character for the reader.
The book is around 12,500 words long in 13 short chapters; bright and breezy, full of light-hearted humour, and takes about a couple of hours to read.

I've now prepared e-book versions of 'Jason Rascal's Spring in Time', and whilst the text is presented in a more straightforward manner, I did keep all of the main illustrations intact.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great race against time story to share with a younger reader. The book was a little slow going in the first chapter, but it took off after that. Lots of adventure and entertainment packed in less than a hundred pages

[Laura Elgie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm sorry but I really didn't enjoy it. I liked the idea of being in a dream world but it wasn't as good as I thought it could be.