Children of the Red King #2
Charlie Bone and the Time Twister
by Jenny Nimmo
In 1916, young Henry Yewbeam’s lily-livered cousin tricks him into staring at the Time
Twister marble, sending Henry ninety years into the future, where the cousin is still
alive at over a hundred years and just as lily-livered as ever. The other children of
time, some of whom are endowed with magic powers from an ancestor, are neatly divided
into nice kids and horrid kids. There is never a doubt about which is which, although
there are plenty of doubts about whether a rational model of time travel underlies the
two (or possibly three) time travel instances. Please see the book’s tags for a short discussion of the issues.
— Michael Main
“People can’t go back. You can’t change history Think about it! When my father was
five years old, he lost his brother. It changed his life. He became an only child, grew
up as an only child. All his memories are of being an only one. You can’t change that
now, can you?”
“No,” Charlie said quickly. “I’m sorry.”
His uncle
hadn’t finished. “Henry’s parents mourned him, just as they mourned poor little
Daphne. James was their only child and, as a result, he was probably spoiled. His father
died in the war and his mother left everything to him, including her lovely cottage by
the sea. You can’t change that, can you?”
The Time Twister by Jenny Nimmo (Egmont Books Ltd,
April 2003).