Charlotte Sometimes

As far as time-travel goes, Charlotte takes a minimal leap—she only goes forty years into the past. But since she is living in 1958, today’s reader goes back a nice round century. Details about the Great War, the influenza epidemic, and women’s suffrage might surprise kids these days even more than they do Charlotte, but the book’s real focus is that perennial stumper, “Who am I, really?” Is Charlotte who she feels she is, or who people thinks she is? If I had found this book when I was ten I would have adored the old-fashioned setting and pondering the logistics of alternate history. Reading it now, I am most delighted by the writing. Farmer’s style is idiosyncratic enough to be noticeable but never overwhelms the story. When she evokes a boarding school in wartime by describing the soap as “glum and parsimonious," and the carpet under her bare feet as “unfriendly," we know Charlotte has a singular self—and that it can make itself known through language. In the right ten-year-old hands, this book could create a writer, or at least a life-long book-lover. (Fun Fact: Charlotte Sometimes inspired the Cure song of the same name.)