book was a blast! It was such a fun story, I loved the narrator's personality, I loved the very British sense of humor, I loved how the morals to the story weren't shoved down our throats like some children's stories, I wish that I would have been forced to read this in school at some point, instead of some of the other crappier ones they make you read.
I would have loved it so much as a kid, This was great! What a lovely and fun book!
I read this story aloud with my family while on vacation, which really was perfect.
It wasn't what I expected at all, which was a more whimsical British fairytale with a moral lesson, but what I got was far superior.
The story was very clever and would be fun for both children and adults to read, especially together, I can imagine better readers than myself putting on voices for each of the characters, which would heighten the fun even further.
I may even look around for this book on audio to hear for myself,
I loved the omnipresent narrator, with the odd comments peppered throughout the story which always made me laugh.
The SandFairy itself was not the friendly Totoro I pictured, but instead a grumpy ol' curmudgeon and the children were very like children, not the fictional young heroes seen as in other YA lit.
I did not end up writing "So true" in the margins anywhere, but did almost stain the pages with the tears of my laughter a few times.
The book was almost difficult to read aloud it was so funny at times,
If there's more I'm onto it!/sitelinkChildren's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up
“Grownup people find it very difficult to believe really wonderful things, unless they have what they call proof.
” Nesbit is the greatgrandma of pretty nearly all the children's fantasy books we love, the first author to write really wittily for kids and without condescending to them, and the originator of the basic structure that carries on through C.
S. Lewis and Edward Eager and even in a way Jo Rowling: four children, usually siblings or cousins but sometimes friends, stumble on a magical something that leads them into a series of fantastic adventures and important discoveries gently conveyed about the big issues of life.
Her books have a lovely period feel, not unlike the opening pages of Alice in Wonderland, tempered by Nesbit's practical sensibility about the real world and her sardonic sense of humor, which makes the books a very enjoyable read for adults as well as great readalouds.
In this story, written in, the magical something is a Psammead, a grumpy Persian sand fairy that looks something like a large tubby rodent with eyes on the end of stalks.
The Psammead is compelled to grant its finders one wish per day, which the children are initially thrilled about, but they soon discover that wishes are chancy things and the Psammead perversely literal in granting them, with often unlooked for and unideal consequences.
There are two sequels, sitelink THE PHOENIX AND THE CARPET, written inand my personal favorite I always hear John Gielgud's voice coming out of the Phoenix and sitelink THE STORY OF THE AMULET.
Theatre folks may be interested to know that Nesbit was Noel Coward's favorite writer there was a copy of THE ENCHANTED CASTLE on his bedside table at Firefly when he died.
"Her books," he wrote, "have meant a very great deal to me, not only when I was a little boy of nine and onwards, but right up to the present day.
I have reread them each at least twenty times, She had an economy of phrase, and an unequalled talent for evoking hot summer days in the English countryside.
" His favorites FIVE CHILDREN AND IT, THE PHOENIX AND THE CARPET, THE HOUSE OF ARDEN, THE ENCHANTED CASTLE, THE WONDERFUL GARDEN, and the Bastable series.
The Brits did a film adaptation in, somewhat different to the book in the way the story gets launched, with Freddie Highmore leading the juvenile cast, and Tara Fitzgerald, Alex Jennings, Zoe Wanamaker and Kenneth Branagh as the adults.
In a stroke of total casting genius, the voice of the Psammead is provided by Eddie Izzard, An absolute pleasure.
Sadly I did not discover it as a child, but it does not matter, I enjoyed it just the same.
This was a cute and charming book, Years ago, I read the Amulet, and it was nice being able to read its prequel and see where the children got the Psammead, as several references were made in the Amulet.
It's a childfriendly book appropriate for elementary school kids, and shows the potential consequences of making wishes without thought, so you can see that this story is also meant as a lesson.
furthered by the author making several personal comments to her readers in the narrative Five children and It is a cult classic that has never been out of print since its publication in
E.
Nesbit mixes realism and fantasy in one of children's literature's most enduring fables
Be careful what you wish for!
When five children Robert, Anthea, Cyril, Jane and baby Lamb move from London to rural Kent, they are amazed to find an ancient sandfairy while playing in a gravel pit.
This 'Psammead' has the power to grant wishes, but the children will soon discover that wishing is a dangerous business and the consequences may not always be to their liking.
I read Five Children and It with the Womens Classic Literature Enthusiasts group and enjoyed it immensely, If you like sitelinkMrs. PiggleWiggle and its series' mates by sitelinkBetty MacDonald, you will like Five Children and It, The ideal child reader of this book is between second and fifth grade, with a fondness for historical fiction or British classics.
For comparison, this is substantially easier reading then sitelinkC, S. Lewis fiction. The ideal adult reader is anyone who enjoys classic childrens novels and/or Edwardian literature,
Five Children and It was published inand is the first novel in Nesbits Psammead trilogy, which consists of Five Children and It, sitelinkThe Phoenix and the Carpet, and sitelinkThe Story of the Amulet.
In Five Children and It, a group of siblings Anthea, Robert, Cyril, Jane, and a baby who is referred to as the Lamb find the Psammead in a sand quarry near their home in the English countryside.
The Psammead is a sand fairy able to grant wishes, This classic takes us to Edwardian England, where horses and buggies were the most common form of transportation, and servants looked after the children.
If you are spoileraverse, you may want to stop reading further,
The most successful aspects of Five Children and It were the worldbuilding, the authentic relationships between and amongst the children, and Nesbit's writing style.
I could relate to the children and their emotions, They were described and interacted in a way that fit their ages and I found them to be differentiated in ageappropriate manners.
Nesbits writing style struck just the right tone for me, between communicating a moral and having fun, The morals werent overblown or eyerolling, The vocabulary didn't strike me as dumbeddown for children, but it also was not as flowery and ornate as Frances Hodgson Burnett's contemporaneously written works and was a style I found highly appealing.
Forof the book, the adventures worked for me, and my prethgrade self would have adored this book because it doesn't talk down to children and is sufficiently complex to appeal to adults.
The sexist and racist elements one chapter involves gypsies grated on me but were tolerable, if Nesbits handling is appropriately appreciated as progressive in the context of herpeers, until I encountered "Scalps" it describes an adventure populated by “red Indians” which made me want to take a shower.
YMMV. The last story involving the mother and stolen or magically relocated jewelry was unsuccessful for me, and I am not certain why although I suspect that the mother's involvement in the story makes it less of an adventure and more of a problem to be solved less charming and imaginative and more dire.
As with the Mrs, Piggle Wiggle series, the chapters of Five Children and It read like a series of onlylightlyconnected short stories, some of which were more successful than others.
It was great fun, though, a superquick readhours perhaps and I recommend it to anyone who reads the description and is intrigued, or who is a fan of Edwardian classics.
Background on the author: E, Nesbit was born in Kennington, Surrey in, The death of her father when she was four years old and the continuing ill health of her sister meant that Nesbit had a childhood absent focused adult attention, and frequent moves.
Her family moved across Europe in search of healthy climates for her sister, only to return to England for financial reasons.
Growing up, she lived in France, Spain and Germany in addition to various locations in Great Britain, Her education came from a combination of periods in local elementary/grammar schools and the occasional boarding school but predominately through reading.
Nesbit wanted to be known as a poet and in her teens had a poem published, This gave her greater confidence to write more, both for adults and children, but it is for herchildren's books including those on which she collaborated with other authors she is best known.
She distinguished herself from other writers of her time by writing about children as they were, and rewriting conventional adventure stories to present them with female characters in lead roles.
Her friends included HG Wells and George Bernard Shaw, She also was a political activist and a follower of sitelinkWilliam Morris and she and her husband Hubert Bland were among the founders of the Fabian Society, a socialist organization later affiliated to the Labour Party.
Nesbit was an active lecturer and prolific writer on socialism during thes,
Interesting links and articles which may, necessarily, include spoilers:
sitelink foliosociety. com/author/ed biography
sitelink wordpress. co
sitelink jhu. edu/article/ This is a perfectly delightful story of the misadventures of five siblings who are granted a daily wish by a prehistoric
creature who lives in the sandpit near their home.
One of the eleven chapters would, by modern standards, be deemed racist, However, this fault might be overlooked when the reader considers the date of publication and could be used as a teachable moment if reading with a child.
All in all, this entertaining tale elicited many chuckles and the occasional loud guffaw! The most fun I've had since reading The Red Blazer Girls books earlier this year.
It was one of my favorites when I was little, I'm surprised and sad I don't like it at all now, Don't hate it either, but, . . The children are forcibly cute, neither intelligent nor sensitive especially towards their inferiors the adventure with the baker's boy was simply odious, there is a lot of really STUPID as in, unnecessary and excessive even for the period the book was written sexism, and there is quite a big dose of preaching, and also xenophobia.
. . really sad.
I may try the next book in the series, just out of sentiment, ذكرت أيام الطفولة عندما قرأت هذا الكتاب لأنها تشبة الرسوم المتحركة سميد
"هيا انظروا سميد مغامر فريد من ألف ألف عام يعود من جديد"
This novel was written in, The author Edith Nesbit tells the story of five children obviously who come across a psammead, a sand fairy, while playing in a deserted gravel pit.
This is one of the earliest examples of children left on their own who then have great adventures, Tha family goes to a house in the country on holiday when their father is called back to work and their mother leaves them to take care of her own sick mother.
The children are basically on their own, minimally supervised by the help,
I loved the story, The children have uncovered a fairy who must now grant their wishes, He agrees to grant one wish a day, and informs them that the results last only 'til sunset, Of course, the children choose foolishly and then spend the rest of the day trying to survive the resulting situation.
It's fun to imagine what one might wish for in their situation,
As I mentioned, the book was written on, I was surprised to read the following: You know, grown up people often say they do not like to punish you, and that they only do it for your own good, and that it hurts them as much as it hurts you.
I thought for sure my parents' generation thought that up ! Nesbit's writing is clever, I enjoyed the names. They call the baby "the lamb" because when he was learning to talk all he said was baaaa, The boy Cyril is called Squirrel by his sibs and Anthea is known as Panther, The five children are loosely based on her own children combined with children her husband had with his two mistresses! One of the mistresses lived with them.
The other, along with her child, lived with Nesbit's mother, Nesbit was known for her lack of conformity to the day's mores and could be seen as eccentric,
Robert, one of the children, tells his siblings, "Oh, I'll be a soldier when I grow up you just see if I don't.
I won't go into the Civil Service, whatever anyone says, " For some reason, I just love that !,