This is not a typical time-travelling book. It is something more and yet, not quite. It took me a while to warm up to Charlotte, mainly because the character lacks a certain pizzazz. She is a passive recipient of things that are happening to her life. When extraordinary things happen to her, her reactions are quite ordinary. I felt other characters like Emily and Bunty were more exciting. She also came across as someone who was not particularly bright. I felt that there was much scope to explore the character much, much more, but Penelope Farmer seemed to hold something back, giving one the feeling that whatever it is, will be revealed eventually. But it never does. I was drawn to what was happening to supporting characters and my interest to keep turning the pages was more out of concern for them than Charlotte. Having said that, I will definitely recommend this for children aged 8-10, as a neat way to introduce time-travel. It does make one wonder about Charlotte's predicament and what would happen if things went horribly wrong. In fact, the story does have an edge-0f-the-seat atmosphere at one point. But it leaves the reader with more than answers. Perhaps, that in itself, is not such a bad thing?

Gripping and poignant story of two girls who keep switching places in time, told from the point of view of the modern (1960s) one, who has to navigate boarding school life in 1918, war time privation, strict and austere codes of behavior, and a fierce and confused little sister. Possibly the best time slip book ever, for either children or adults. Penelope Farmer reworked the ending more than once -- although the outcome is not substantively changed in any of them, there are at least three different versions. This particular edition (with the girl who looks like she should be named Kimberly looking in the mirror) was the one I first read, which is probably why I think it's the best. It's a little more stark in tone than the others, and the last page packs an emotional punch.

First read (and owned) this as a child. Got it on a whim from the library for my daughter. Fell in love with it again and, having forgotten the ending, cried and cried. Magical British children’s fiction from 1969. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Feeling nostalgic, I decided to reread a book that I loved around the age of 10 to see if I would enjoy it as much as an adult. I really did love it and believe me, I normally do not like to read "young adult" fiction anymore. Even at my old age, it is fun to imagine myself as young Charlotte, suddenly swept into another time. For you youth librarians, you should definitely suggest to your female readers, from about age 10 - 14!

I would have loved this book to bits when I was ten years old. It has so many good things in it - time travel, boarding school, some nice historical facts , possibly a few ghosts........all good fun! Reading it now though it is quite clearly a children's book (not YA) and as such is a little bland and lacking in real action. So for me this was an excellent children's book, well written and entertaining although of course also old fashioned.

Ostensibly a time-travel book, this little gem is actually more about figuring out who one really is. Lots of interesting historical detail thrown in besides. And it's got the perennial hook of boarding school to add to the allure. The characters rang true- especially the confusion and dismay and mustering of wits. Recommended.

I read this over the summer and somehow missed reviewing it. It was a perfect book to read by the pool.

“Were you some particular person because people recognized you as that?”

What a lovely little story. It captures the very child-like enchantment of the world, and Charlotte and Emily are such likable characters.

While the story does involve time-travel, it isn't about time-travel at all. "Charlotte Sometimes" is a story of identity, of learning and knowing who you are, wherever you may be, and whatever the circumstances you may find yourself in. It is also a very real tale of loneliness and helplessness; of harboring some dreadful secret that you cannot tell anyone.

The time-travel aspect itself is very beautifully done, and the story borders on the line to historical fiction, as it shows how the world looked for a child living during WWI. I found it very heartfelt and deeply thought-provoking.

Leí este libro por la canción de The Cure http://youtu.be/4KeII31qyck
Charlotte comienza el internado, y elige dormir en una camita con ruedas.
Clare de 1918, en plena Primera Guerra Mundial, está en el internado esperando ser asiganda a una casa de acogida y también duerme en una cama con ruedas. Todas las noches viajan en el tiempo mientras duermen.
Prefiero no contar más para no dar spoilers. Ni siquiera te guies por el video que no dice mucho, aunque la letra de la canción si toma algunas frases del libro.

Charlotte Sometimes es una historia que más allá de la aventura, trata sobre un tema fundamental que es la identidad, el ser. Estamos condicionados por un contexto temporal, la familia y personas en general, un nombre, un lugar, pero ¿somos lo que somos por todo esto?

And, she thought uncomfortably, 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,
would she know how to be, how to feel
like, Charlotte? Were you some particular person
only because people recognized you as that?

5/5 Me encantó!

Charlotte, new student at a boarding school, has one of those days we've all had when we're new somewhere. Exhausted, nervy, confused, she goes to bed and wakes up in the same school forty years earlier. Turns out she's somehow swapped places with a schoolgirl of that time - Clare - and somehow they keep shifting places ...

I'm rubbish at writing synopses so I apologise for the fact that the above sounds distinctly bald. Charlotte Sometimes really isn't. It reminded me of Adele Geras' Egerton Hall trilogy and also of Phillipa Pearce's Tom's Midnight Garden. There's a very lyrical dreamlike quality to all of these texts who deal, in some way or another, with issues of self and identity. Growing up. Becoming who you're meant to be. Finding out how you become an individual.

Sometimes children's literature is missold in a way. It's presented as children's literature but in reality it deals with issues that cross age, sex and arbitary reading divisions. I know that there are depths of content and meaning that I'm going to have to go back to Charlotte Sometimes for. I could feel them at the edge of my reading and I love that - that tangible sense of a text having more than what I'm currently reading.

Charlotte Sometimes is a book I'm astounded I've never come across before. It's dreamy, elegant and fog-bound in mystery. Sometimes when you read things, you put the book down and step away and drop it out of your head immediately. I don't think this will be happening soon with this one.

This was a chore to get through! The last quarter or so was okay, but getting there was a slog. The ending bumps it from 2 to 3 stars.

Read it when I was 13 which is probably the only reason I'll give it 5* but I remember it having me hooked from start to finish

Growing up I became a huge fan of The Cure and “Charlotte Sometimes” was one my more favorite songs by them. And yet I had no idea it was based on a book. I just thought it was merely a song they had written about a girl who experienced some kind of vision about a faraway place and time. I thought it was like that episode from the 80’s Twilight Zone “A Message from Charity” where it wasn’t so much switching bodies as being able to see through another’s eyes.

But now, after having read the book, it is a strange but cool tale. It’s full of imagery and interesting ideas about identity and independence. I mean—after all, how would you like it if you swapped bodies with someone forty years in the past and everyone who knew the person you swapped into, couldn’t tell the difference? And, alternately, after living as this other person for months and pretending to be someone you’re not, who’s to say that isn’t your new identity? Who’s to say, by pretending to be this other you for an extended period of time, you haven’t actually changed your personality and character to be this person.

It’s pretty heady stuff for a novel considered to be for children.

And, finally, that coda from the book hits home even harder once you know the full story. It absolutely kills me more than even the same verse from the song does.
—
“On that bleak track, the sun almost gone again, tears were pouring down her face. She was crying and crying for a girl who had died more than forty years before, whom, in any normal world, to any normal way of thinking, she could not have possibly known; whom she had never seen, though she had lived as her. She was crying for herself, perhaps, and for Emily.”