The Internet Time Travel Database

Aviary Hall 3

Charlotte Sometimes

A wide-eyed young girl stares into a tumbler full of water and small, transparent, green spheres.

by Penelope Farmer

Novel
Fantasy
Children
Undetermined Time Travel
English
Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer (Chatto and Windus, September 1969).

Two young, boarding-school students—Charlotte in 1963 and Clare in 1918—swap minds through time every night, until one day the bed that’s causing all this magic gets moved to the hospital ward, and they are stuck in each other’s times.

—Michael Main

“But I’m not Clare,” Charlotte began to say hopelessly, then stopped herself, explanation being impossible, especially since this girl seemed to think so incredibly that she was Clare.

Tags

(7)

Time Periods
- Circa AD 1900 to 1929: Clare’s time period
- Circa AD 1960 to 1969: Charlotte’s home time
Timeline Models
- Unexplained Timeline Model: There is some musing about whether the children in 1918 will grow up to adults that Charlotte knows in 1963, but nothing deep comes of it.
Time Travel Methods
- Time Chairs and Other Furniture: the bed
Themes
- Mind Travel: Charlotte and Clare swap minds.
- Stuck in Time: Eventually Charlotte and Clare are unable to swap back because Charlotte can’t sleep in the magic bed!
Real-World Tags
- World War I: The war is in the background in 1918, and Armistice Day is celebrated.

Variants

(3)

Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer (Chatto and Windus, September 1969).

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Penelope Farmer

audio reading.
Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer (Chivers Audio Books, 1996).

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Penelope Farmer

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . narrated by unknown persons

audio reading.
Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer (Audible Studios, February 2013).

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Penelope Farmer

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . narrated by Hannah Gordon

Translations

(4)

Czech.
Klára a Karolína by Penelope Farmer (Vyšehrad, 1997).

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Penelope Farmer

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . translated by Alžběta Hesounová

Estonian.
Mõnikord Charlotte by Penelope Farmer (Kuper, 1999).

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Penelope Farmer

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . translated by Anneli Aasmäe

German.
Charlotte durch alle Zeiten by Penelope Farmer (Aladin, 2014).

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Penelope Farmer

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . translated by Ylva Spångberg

Swedish.
Charlotte varannan dag by Penelope Farmer (Valentin Förlag, 1988).

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Penelope Farmer

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . translated by Ylva Spångberg

Indexer Notes

(1)

Audio Readings—We don’t know whether the 2013 audio reading, narrated by Hannah Gordon, differs from the earlier 1996 reading.