Classics in Short No.2: Five Children and It

A gravel pit of golden guineas and a furry fairy to grant your every wish? No, it’s not the national lottery but …

Five Children and It

by E Nesbit

First Published:

1902. Various editions available.

What Five Children?

Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane and their baby brother (the Lamb) who are left in the care of Martha the housekeeper, ergo they are left to their own devices, when their parents unexpectedly have to leave at the start of their family holiday. One day Cyril suggests that they go digging at the nearby gravel pit …

Hold on! Who is ‘It’?

A Psammead or Sand-fairy who has remained hidden for thousands of years in the bottom of said gravel pit. With a round, furry body, bat-like ears, bulging eyes on long sticks and hands and feet like a monkey’s, it is certainly not the usual wand-waving type of fairy but nonetheless an endearing creature with the ability to grant wishes to those who ask politely – this is quite an exhausting procedure for it must inflate itself to almost twice its size to perform the wish.

Let me guess: the wishes backfire?

The Psammead grants the children one collective wish per day, lasting only until sunset. Although they try to be sensible, the wishes bring the children nothing but trouble. Wishing ‘to be rich beyond the dreams of avarice’ results in the children having a whole pit full of unexchangeable golden guineas, and only the timely wearing off of the wish saves them from the police. They almost lose the Lamb for ever when, stuck with looking after him for the day, they unintentionally wish him wanted by someone else, and wishing for wings leaves them stranded on top of a church tower at sunset.

Classic qualities?

This is one of a whole genre of holiday stories which grew up towards the end of the Victorian age pioneered by writers such as F Anstey and Kenneth Grahame as well as E Nesbit which takes children away from their everyday environment (and often away from their parents too) and places them in traditional holiday places. E Nesbit’s books are timeless because the lively, bantering children she creates ring true to children of any era. The novels have a recognizable framework in which there is a satisfying beginning, middle and end, and sufficient room within for character development. In Five Children and It, the children’s growing self-awareness and their understanding of other people’s feelings – including the bad-tempered Psammead – are as important to the story as anything else that happens to them. Above all, the characters are extremely likeable, individual, totally realistic and consequently, convincing.

Who’s it for?

If being read aloud, children of five or six will enjoy the comical escapades the wishes bring about, while older readers (8-11s) will also appreciate the emotional and moral dilemmas facing the characters.

Who was E Nesbit?

Edith Nesbit was born in 1858 and grew up in a large family of one half sister, two older sisters and two brothers nearer to her in age and therefore her fellow-conspirators. Her childhood was a happy but unsettled one, due to her sister Mary’s ill-health. In 1880 Edith married Hubert Bland and they became founder members of the Fabian Society (an association of British socialists who advocated the establishment of democratic socialism). As an Advanced Woman, Edith cut her hair short, wore all-wool ‘aesthetic’ clothes and smoked in public. Their Bohemian household was always open to their many socialist and literary friends, including Bernard Shaw and H G Wells. For over 20 years Edith wrote poems and short stories which were published in magazines, before turning her talents to novels for children, for which she drew upon her many happy childhood experiences.

Edith possessed great energy for life. Whilst coping with financial problems and with Hubert, a compulsive philanderer, she wrote many successful children’s books, brought up her own and two adopted children and worked ceaselessly for charity and other good causes. She died in 1924.

Politically correct then?

Of its time, I’d say. The five children are middle-class and looked after by housekeeper, Martha. Their wishes bring them into contact with many other types of people – servants, shopkeepers, farmers, gypsies and horse traders who are presented rather stereotypically, but then so are the aristocratic characters. E Nesbit is not overtly didactic but she recognises children’s innate sense of morality, and has her characters discuss the ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ of some of their actions. But these dilemmas of childhood are treated with humour and she often adds her own narrator’s judgement (usually on the children’s side).

Sequels?

The Phoenix and the Carpet (1904) and The Story of the Amulet (1906). In 19?? Helen Cresswell also wrote one called The Return of the Psammead.

Most memorable quotation:

‘“We found a Fairy,” said Jane obediently. “No nonsense, please,” said her mother sharply.’

Other books by E Nesbit?

Lots. The best known are The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1899), The Woodbegoods (1901) and The Railway Children (1906).

Helen Levene works in publishing.