Charlotte Sometimes [Paperback]

Penelope Farmer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 9, 1999

After Charlotte's first night at boarding school, the view from the window has changed and the girl in the next bed is not the girl who was there last night. She is a stranger who calls Charlotte "Clare" and says she's her sister. Somehow, Charlotte has slipped back to 1919 and is someone else.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

On her first morning at boarding school, a girl wakes up to strange new surroundings in this haunting fantasy. Ages 10-14.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"An intriguing fantasy."—The Horn Book

"...a book of quite exceptional distinction...the author has built a haunting, convincing story which comes close to being a masterpiece of its kind...not easily forgotten."—Christian Science Monitor

A "haunting fantisy." —Publishers Weekly

"Farmer writes with style. She is vivid in her depiction of place: on almost every page, scattered with colorful figures of speech, we are drawn into the school and the surroundings of the school through sights and sounds and smells and textures...above all we are moved by the depth and poignancy of the relationship between Charlotte and Emily."—Eleanor Cameron

"This year's most haunting fantasy."—The Sunday Times

"Farmer is always gifted in her grasp of possibilities that bring us up short with surprise and delight and satisfaction."—Eleanor Cameron --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 198 pages
• Publisher: Arrow Red Fox (January 9, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099267195
• ISBN-13: 978-0099267195
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,797,641 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars why did they change the ending?, January 31, 2004

By 

Alison - See all my reviews

This review is from: Charlotte Sometimes (Paperback)

I read this in the hardback edition when I was a teenager. I loved it so much that when I saw immediately bought it when I saw it on sale as a paperback. What a disappointment! The last chapter was altered so the ending was different. I even got out the original hardcover from the library to check that I wasn't remembering incorrectly - but sadly it was true.

While the new version is very good, it just isn't the same as the original.

53 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Charlotte Always, June 2, 2001

By 

Kali "bengaligirl" (United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Charlotte Sometimes (Paperback)

I actually read this book when I was a young teen and I have to admit I was only reading it because there was nothing else to read in the house and the telly was on the blink. I absolutely loved it from beginning to end. This is a time-travel story with a bit of a twist.

Charlotte Makepeace is a new girl at an old boarding school. On her first night she goes to sleep in her bed and in the morning she wakes up as Clare Moby, a schoolgirl from over forty years ago. Of course Charlotte is confused, even more so when people don't realise that she is not Clare, not even Clare's younger sister Emily.

Somehow she struggles through her first day as Clare but to add to her confusion she finds herself back in her own time the following day and no one has missed her! Charlotte soon realises that Clare is taking her place in her time and she is taking Clare's. The two girls muddle through by communicating through Clare's diary, leaving each other notes and messages in order for them to survive in their swap-over worlds.

However it's not long before Clare's younger sister Emily realises that something is wrong and Charlotte is forced to tell her the truth. With Emily as an ally, Charlotte's time in the past is a little easier but there is a dark cloud on the horizon. Clare and Emily are going into lodgings outside the school and the children have worked out that the time travelling that they are experiencing has something to do with the bed they sleep in and the tree outside the window which exists only in Clare's time.

This is an exciting story that moves at a fair pace, even more so when Charlotte is trapped in the past, forced to become a day pupil and temporarily forfeit her real life in the future.

Charlotte's identity is soon in question even to herself. Is she Charlotte or is she in fact Clare? Only Emily constant nagging about trying to get the real Clare back keeps the young girl aware of whom she really is.

Charlotte experiences life in England during the First World War. What once was history for her becomes the present, and she suffers with her new friends, as they loose loved ones to foreign battlefields, and face the terror of air raids in the middle of the night.

Charlotte's eventual permanent return to the future is not without its own problems but luckily Clare had her own ally in the form of Elizabeth, a dorm mate who like Emily realised that Clare was not Charlotte and helped her as best she could.

Charlotte's return to the future is not with out a tragic price. Clare, Charlotte finds out died not long after her return to the past, from flu and for a while Charlotte is grief stricken. However redemption comes in the form of a parcel of memories from a now grown up Emily who has waited many years to contact her sister's fellow time traveller in the future.

"Charlotte Sometimes" is a surprisingly dark children's novel with flashes of colour and inspiration as two young girls live lives that are not their own.

It is a poignant story about the loss of those we love and how we have to carry on no matter what. A surprisingly mature book that can be read by both older children and young adults alike.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A review of the book "Charlotte Sometimes", August 23, 2005

By 

Gillian Buchanan "Classical Music Editor at B... (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Charlotte Sometimes (Paperback)

This is a superbly written children's book from the late 1960s and republished in the 1990s. There is plenty of mystery and you never quite work out why Charlotte is mysteriously transposed in time back to the first world war until the last few pages. I think it's one for slightly older children, perhaps around 10-13, as there are many elements in it around the history of the 1914-18 war which the imaginative teacher could include in class lessons.

It's a great read and I found it difficult to put down, coming back to it fresh after last reading it in my own childhood.