Most Popular Books by Penelope Farmer

A time-travel story that is both a poignant exploration of human identity and an absorbing tale of suspense. It’s natural to feel a little out of place when you’re the new girl, but when Charlotte Makepeace wakes up after her first night at boarding school, she’s baffled: everyone thinks she’s a girl called Clare Mobley, and even more shockingly, it seems she has traveled forty years back in time to 1918. In the months to follow, Charlotte wakes alternately in her own time and in Clare’s. And instead of having only one new set of rules to learn, she also has to contend with the unprecedented strangeness of being an entirely new person in an era she knows nothing about. Her teachers think she’s slow, the other girls find her odd, and, as she spends more and more time in 1918, Charlotte starts to wonder if she remembers how to be Charlotte at all. If she doesn’t figure out some way to get back to the world she knows before the end of the term, she might never have another chance.

Penelope''s mother died when she was a very young child and she was subsequently adopted by her mum''s best friend, Aunt Jo. On the surface her life seems as normal as anyone''s and yet underneath she is deeply confused. Why does she suffer such painful headaches, why does she remember things that can''t possibly have happened to her, and why can she speak phrases of Latin when she has never been taught the subject?!. Sometimes she really believes she is going mad. And then when even her best friend, Piloo, starts talking about reincarnation it''s almost more than she can bear. Penelope only wants to be herself, but in order to achieve that she has to look to her past and discover just who she really is. . . . .

A strange boy teaches the children in a small English village to fly like birds.

A retelling of the Greek myth in which Persephone returns from the underworld each year to bring spring to the earth.

When Hugh is given a new cupboard, little does he know the secret it holds or how it will affect him and all his friends. Because the cupboard changes things - sometimes dangerously - and if it has the power to change a wallet into a pig, imagine what it can turn Hugh''s friend Penn into! . . . And then there are Hugh''s dreams; or are they really dreams?

This imaginative fantasy sequel to the Summer birds, finds Emma and Bobby flying backward in time while they sleep.

Two English girls from differing backgrounds are joined in friendship when they discover a stone that seems to have magical powers.

Set in Kenya, Ecuador and Europe, and intertwining fact and fiction, this novel uses a multitude of techniques - diary, narrative, history, information and adman copy - to explore the implications of an international research project into epilepsy. By the author of Eve: Her Story.

Jane Ophelia - Jo - retired publisher, lies on her deathbed. In between the attentions of her favourite nurse and visits from her not always grateful children, her fourth husband and her only female friend, she relives the story of her past from childhood to old age; from life with her adopted father to facing death in a terminal ward. As her story unfolds, the immeasurable and alienating impact of two World Wars on one woman''s life is unveiled, and with it a shocking revelation about her parentage...Melancholic, haunting and optimistic, Goodnight Ophelia is Penelope Famer''s rich evocation of the vicissitudes of a 20th Century life and of one woman''s journey to make peace with the global and personal conflicts of her past.

Ellie loves being with Granny. She likes her bright clothes and the funny un-Grannyish things she does, such as climbing up ladders and painting her face like a tiger. This is a collection of six stories about the adventures of Ellie and Granny.

When a stone crocodile from the local park mysteriously appears on their doorstep three children become the owner of an extraordinary pet.

Transported into strange underwater worlds by the half a sea shell William owns, Mary and William conduct a seemingly hopeless search for the other half of the shell.

The sea shell half that William keeps in his pocket has the ability to transport him and Mary to strange under-water worlds where they search for the shell''s other half.

Esther''s life is in turmoil. After moving from the country to a city full of canals, rebuilding itself around her,to a new school full of violent tensions between white, Muslim, Afro-Caribbean pupils, she is all at sea. And suddenly she starts receiving mysterious emails. But who is this ''Ella''? What does she want from Esther? And what has she got to do with Granny, a barge-living eccentric and Esther''s main ally in her confusing new world? And why does Ella feed Esther''s growing fascination with the cranes she watches from her bedroom window, ever lifting and wheeling as they rebuild the city. As the turmoil mounts, Esther becomes increasingly, dangerously, obsessed with the cranes. Would climbing to the top of one help resolve the growing confusions below? Or is it Ella''s way of calling Esther to her? Between Ella, school violence, the towering cranes, the story builds to a terrifying climax - can Esther survive?

Relates how Cadmus'' quest for his lost sister results in the founding of Thebes.