No one knows the full story of Charlie Small. His battered journal was found washed up on a remote, windswept shore. And at first we thought it an elaborate hoax. Surely no eight-year-old could have had so many wild adventures, witnessed so many extraordinary things, lived such an incredible life - and still only be eight. And yet . . . there was something so vivid in the telling, that we were persuaded to send the journal for analysis.

The results were absolutely astonishing. Everything in the journal of Charlie Small is true. He really has wrestled a deadly river croc, ridden a steam-powered rhino and been tribal chief in a city of gorillas. And countless other things besides. And . . . not only that . . . even though Charlie Small is only eight, he must have lived for over four hundred years!