Tim And Charlotte

Edward Ardizzone

Editions

Review

In this spiffing book there appears that most mysterious of creatures, a girl.  She comes out of the sea.  Not a mermaid, but a real girl, adrift, unconscious, in a rubber ring... Our heroes, Tim and Ginger (we have met them in Little Tim And The Brave Sea Captain hbk £10.99 and Tim To The Rescue ) pull her out of the sea, and Tim’s mother puts her to bed.  In due course she revives, but she has lost her memory!  Who is she?  Advertisements are posted.  Meanwhile she has a smashing time baking cakes and darning etc. (she is a girl) while the boys are boys.  In due course her Aunt Agatha comes to claim her but Charlotte (it turns out to be her real name) is miserable and pines away, until a doctor at last says that what she really needs to make her better is to return to her friends Tim and Ginger.

One of the delights of Ardizzone’s pictures is his use of speech bubbles.  They do not litter the pictures - these are not comics.  They are used sparingly, to great effect; they are an integral part of the book.  In this story there is one picture which has an unusual quantity of them - four.  It occurs when Charlotte has just come round, and can’t remember anything.  The picture is of Tim with his parents and Ginger at a table, sensibly discussing what to do: a council of war.  Tim is standing, arm outstretched like an orator.  “I vote we call her Charlotte,” he says. “I like that,” says his mother. “Hear hear,” says his father, who is taking minutes of the proceedings.  Ginger is looking away, head-in-hands, disgusted by Tim’s admiration of this beastly girl, and jealous.  “Fishy would be better,” he grumbles.  This had my 4-year-old daughter in stitches, and she dissolves into giggles whenever she thinks of it.  Age 4-7 - review by Johnny de Falbe

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