This is a re-read, though I came to this book in adulthood. Even though I was aware of the Cure song, my husband told me about the book when he learned of the band.
It is very well written and incredibly sad, though it turns out I have the rewritten ending. Now, I need to find the original.

As many other reviewers have mentioned, I'd have never heard of this book if it were not for The Cure's beautiful song of the same name.

I kinda wish I'd just enjoyed the music and not sought out its inspiration.

The book is not completely bad or without merit. In fact, the premise is one of the most creative that I have seen in children's supernatural-themed books. The writing is quite good as well, and is surprisingly readable for an older book (not all classic books are easy for today's kids to read).

It starts off with Charlotte arriving at a new boarding school. It's World War II and she's been relocated for safety. There isn't much with her getting settled aside from some first day jitters. She wakes up the next morning only to discover (spoilers follow!!)...


That she has traveled back in time over 30 years and taken the place of another girl, Claire. It's something to do with the bed. She and Claire alternate places each night via the magic bed and while they never can meet, they communicate through an old journal. There are some cute minor sequences in which they get confused about homework assignments and a rather sad scene in which Charlotte forgets to tell Claire that she's accepted a lonely classmate's invitation to become best friends (awww! remember those days?).

However, that's not the bulk of it. It is more about Charlotte's relationship with Emily, Claire's little sister. Emily ruined the book for me. She's a nasty little shit. I kept hoping an air raid would take her out. She's that rotten, destructive type of child so common in older literature that we're all supposed to think is funny and adorable, like Eloise who lives in the fancy schmancy hotel and deliberately damages property.

Charlotte is astonishingly bland and doesn't seem too bothered about being dumped back in time. A pluckier, or at least less doofus, heroine would look for a class yearbook (yes, they had them in World War I) or some admission letters or hit up a library to find out about Claire...nope.

About a third of the way through the book, she and Claire wind up stuck in the wrong times when Charlotte and Emily are sent to live with an elderly couple and their spinster daughter. Charlotte can't sleep in the bed, so the girls are stuck. I was horrified at whatever was happening to Claire, who'd have no idea.

Emily continues to be a shit, mocking the couple who are grieving for their son, a casualty of World War I. Their daughter is very kind to the girls and takes them under her wing, but Emily continues to misbehave. The cruelty of her behavior and Charlotte's meh attitude were a major turnoff. Neither girl seems to have much sympathy for the grieving family, which is odd because in both time settings, their classmates are losing their fathers to the world wars.

Eventually, they get the time thing straightened out. Claire dies a few days later in her own time. WTF? What an awful ending. We never find out what happened to Bunty, Susannah, poor Miss Agnes (did Emily ever bother visiting her, or did she just keep the nice toys she gave her?), or anyone else we might have cared about. But Emily, that little turd, grew up to be a bigger turd and have 4 children and live happily ever after.

Charlotte Sometimes is a good story, but most times just sucks. (I did like the monkey puzzle tree. Whenever I get my dream house, I'm going to plant one and climb it with my niece.)

School-story, time-slip novel, and third entry in Penelope Farmer's "Aviary Hall" series - a trilogy of loosely connected children's fantasies, following the fortunes of sisters Charlotte and Emma Makepeace as they learn to fly (n  The Summer Birdsn); travel, in Emma's case, back to the very beginning of life on earth (n  Emma in Wintern); and, in Charlotte's, switch places with a fellow student from forty years before (here) - Charlotte Sometimes is a brilliant exploration of identity, and a sensitive depiction of a girl who feels somewhat out of place, even when not out of time. The tale of Charlotte's first term at boarding school, in which she alternately wakes up as herself, in the (then) current time, and as Clare Moby, a pupil at the same school, in 1918, it touches on issues of perception, of others and of self, and how the two are intertwined:

"Perhaps we never looks at people properly," muses Charlotte, as she considered how easy it has been for her to step into Clare's shoes (and for Clare to step into her shoes, in the present/future), asking: "what would happen if people did not recognize you? Would you know who you were yourself? If tomorrow they started to call her Vanessa or Janet or Elizabeth or Elizabeth, would she know how to be, how to feel, like Charlotte? Were you some particular person only because people recognized you as such?" These are questions that Charlotte struggles with, particularly when an unexpected turn of events strands her in 1918, and it begins to look like she might not get home to her own time. Just who is she, anyway? Charlotte? Clare? Or sometimes one or the other...?

Although somewhat different in feeling, than the earlier two Aviary Hall books, whose strange, eldritch enchantment I found utterly absorbing, this time-slip fantasy is just as appealing, in its own way - its fantasy believable, not because of magical atmosphere or extraordinary character, but because of its matter-of-fact juxtaposition with reality. I appreciated the depiction of WWI England, and the way - in stark contrast to some of the children's novels (and school stories!) of that actual time - it refused to romanticize or glorify that conflict. I was engaged by Charlotte's struggle to remain herself, something made more difficult by her uncertainty as to just who that self was. Finally, I was reminded of my all-time favorite time-slip novel, Philippa Pearce's classic Tom's Midnight Garden, and was happily surprised (and terribly moved) by the differences in ending, with Clare's death, so soon after switching places, for the final time, with Charlotte; and the lack of meeting with the now grown-up Emily, whose communication with Charlotte is conducted through letter. All in all, an outstanding children's novel, one I would recommend to all school story lovers, and fans of time-slip adventures. I can see why The New York Review Children's Collection recently chose it to be reprinted!

This was one of my favourite books as a young girl and I found it while clearing out my parents' house so decided to re-read. Still really enjoyed it as an adult.

A quiet time-travel book. Thirteen-year-old Charlotte goes to bed in the oldest bed in her new boarding school in 1958,
n  n  
n  Not the same story, but I do love Eleanor Bronn

and wakes up in the same bed in the school infirmary of 1918 with everyone calling her "Clare."

Farmer handles the history and the time-shift beautifully, and Charlotte is a thoughtful, likable heroine who's given a lot to ponder here. Because Farmer wrote the novel when WWI was still part of living memory, she comfortably includes a wealth of period detail, from séances to neglected "oriental" gardens to spillikens. As several other reviewers have said already, ten-year-old me would have loved it.

Not as dramatic or sentimental as A Little Princess, which the author clearly admired. But Charlotte's not that kind of girl, anyway.

Charlotte Sometimes is a children's novel which was published in 1969, by the English author Penelope Farmer. It was recommended to me by one of my work mates, and when I started reading it, I knew I was in for a unique reading experience.

It's initially set in a boarding school, we have various students and objects described to us in detail, it's fantastic, I felt like I was there, everything was as new to me as it was to Charlotte; who finds when she wakes up, things are different again!

What I mean to say is, she's travelled back in time, but we don't know how or why! Was she sent back with a purpose? And who is this Clare character she can mysteriously communicate with? Even though her fellow students, who closely resemble her new friends at her original boarding school, are calling her Clare!

Sufficed it to say, this book was definitely refreshing in its characters and setting, but also it had a big historical inspiration, it's a novel of the First World War. Pen
elope Farmer researched this well, to weave factual information not only about the war itself but the lifestyle people would've had, from the rations of food and drink to the fact that anyone, including fathers and brothers, would've met their fate in the war.

The book surprisingly took a very emotive turn at the end, I found it really sad and bittersweet for various reasons, one being even though this book was short, I felt like each character in the past and present, definitely grew up fast and therefore were older than their years!

For the reasons above I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.

Thank you for reading, until next time,

Brooklyn :)

Done with the second read now, and still not sure what to make of it. I do find interesting Charlotte's concerns about figuring out who she is when she's not in Clare's shoes, but mostly the fact that there weren't very many individual personalities and that there wasn't much fun keeps me from thinking that this would be widely enjoyed by children. Young me, even though she was quiet and introspective and well-read, wouldn't have much liked this either.

:shrug: different strokes....

See more comments in the Children's Books group, May 2021
Read on openlibrary.org.

I really enjoyed every single page of this book! I learnt a lot about the time periods it was set in and found that it was so easy to immerse myself in. It reminded me a lot in some ways of Coraline, whilst still being its own unique story. All the characters were very believable and I found myself getting attached to Emily and her friends, just as Charlotte had done. The ending was beautiful and definitely made me cry a bit. I think this will be a book I keep going back to re-read every few years as I found it so comforting and easy to read

I was expecting this to be whimsical and sort of funny but it turned out to be extremely suspenseful, at times creepy, and very thoughtful! The bits about World War I and the mystery of where the two girls would end up were terrifying.

So while I most definitely do tend to think that Penelope Farmer’s 1969 time slip/school story Charlotte Sometimes could basically be approached as a stand-alone novel, upon completion, I also do have to wonder if I had read the first two novels of Farmer’s Aviary Hall series, if I had perused The Summer Birds and Emma in Winter (which I do still intend to do) prior to commencing with Charlotte Sometimes, I might have already and from the previous two accounts had a bit of a feeling for and understanding and appreciation of Charlotte Makepeace as a person (both internally and externally) and not taken so long (probably requiring around forty percent of Penelope Farmer’s text) to both get into Charlotte Sometimes and to also become sufficiently acquainted with main protagonist Charlotte on an intimate and personal reading pleasure level. For while I actually did start personally enjoying Charlotte Makepeace more and more the further along I got with Charlotte Sometimes I do kind of think that reading the third of the Aviary Hall novels before the first two (or like me not having actually read the first two series stories) kind of does rather tend to throw a reader right into Charlotte Makepeace as a character, as a person in medias res so to speak, with me finding until Charlotte and Clare get stranded (in the past for Charlotte Makepeace and in the future for Clare Moby) that Charlotte is not really all that interesting (and especially if compared to Clare Moby’s sister Emily), as Penelope Farmer does seem to write more about Emily than about Charlotte at first (and perhaps because she assumes her readers to already know enough about the latter from the previous two Aviary Hall instalments).

Therefore and indeed, I also do have to thus wonder if this feeling of not really knowing all that much about and not being given all that many narrational details about Charlotte Makepeace at the beginning of Charlotte Sometimes might have been avoided if I had in fact previously read The Summer Birds and Emma in Winter and if the first two series novels do give readers an introduction to Charlotte Makepeace that is kind of missing in Charlotte Sometimes (as I do find Charlotte pretty scantily and uninterestingly depicted when Penelope Farmer first has her come to boarding school and even during her first time slip changes with Clare, that Charlotte Makepeace is present but not all that much being described in-depth, and that perhaps Penelope Farmer kind of until Charlotte is stranded in the past and Clare in the future rather assumes prior reading knowledge of in particular what Charlotte Makepeace is generally like and does not feel the need to expand on this all that much).

Now with regard to Charlotte Sometimes post when the two girls get respectively stranded (and yes, it also kind of does annoy me that one never really gets to know almost anything substantial about Clare, that Penelope Farmer in my opinion makes Clare Moby appear as rather a total nonentity throughout, that we readers only ever learn about her second rate so to speak, so that even Clare’s death from the Spanish Flu is basically just a related, a told story), yes indeed, my reading joy has greatly ended up increasing in parts two and three of Charlotte Sometimes, as in particular the questions Charlotte has and poses about her and general identity are both interesting and majorly and delightfully thought provoking, but frankly, for a middle grade novel also quite sophisticated. And I in fact do think I would as a tween or teenager have felt a bit lost and confused reading in particular the parts where Charlotte Makepeace is stranded in the past and unsure of who she actually is, since even reading Charlotte Sometimes as an older adult has personally speaking sometimes felt a bit befuddling and me having to stop and reconsider and wonder (not to mention that practical me also does wonder why Emily and Charlotte, acting as Clare, would not have considered trying to get Charlotte into that special time slippage bed AFTER ALL danger from the influenza pandemic were over and done with, but of course I am likely approaching this with too much non internal to Charlotte Sometimes knowledge and of course with me also rather desiring a good and positive ending for Clare as well, and not to have her die of the influenza pandemic).

So in closing, my final impressions of Charlotte Sometimes are that I have definitely found Emily Moby a slightly more enjoyable and interesting character than Charlotte Makepeace (and also of course Clare Moby), but that Charlotte definitely not only has continually grown on me throughout Charlotte Sometimes, and with her, with Charlotte in particular in parts two and three more and more both reminding me of myself and feeling increasingly personally approachable (since as much as I do find Emily Moby interesting and fun as a character, I actually do find both Charlotte Makepeace and Clare Moby more akin and alike to me spiritually and emotionally with their tendency towards introversion and introspection and would find someone as generally extroverted as Emily Moby actually quite massively exhausting in the long run).

bought this book for my love while she was in hospital.
Beautiful book.
Sad, pretty, moving and brings forth enough tears to set sail on.
plus a great song by The Cure
xx

Great fun! I’d have adored this when I was 9, 10, 11. My 10 year old self gives this 5 full stars. If I wasn’t so in touch with my 10 year old self, I might have given this only 4 stars, but it’s a completely delightful and smart story.

It’s very suspenseful. It’s a fun meld of speculative fiction and historical fiction. Some aspects are ingenious. It was fun to try to figure out who one particular character was.

Charlotte is a wonderful character, and I was particularly fond of Emily. The mostly absent Clare was fascinating too. As a kid I would have loved putting myself in Charlotte’s place and in Emily’s place, and it was interesting even now.

Wonderful story of one’s identity and exactly what that means, of boarding school, of details about WWI and the late 1950s too. This is a skillfully told story, compelling from beginning to end, and very touching throughout.

When I was a kid I used to love this author’s book The Summer Birds; I’m so glad I read this one for the Goodreads’ group: A Thrilling Term at Goodreads: The Girls’ School-Story Group.