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A review by hoboken
Five Children and It by E. Nesbit
3.0
Good late Victorian fun. You lose something when you read a children's book for the first time as an adult. But I would have liked this as a kid although it doesn't have the kind of compelling characters that make you read a book over and over again--like Alice or Dr. Dolittle. So it's lighter weight, a fairy tale with early 20th-century English schoolboy speak. And the omniscient narrator gets a bit arch at times.
Having the knights' equipment come from different historical periods b/c the children knew about them only from pastiche illustrations in their When Knights Were Bold books was a good touch. The episode in which the baby grows up was amusing. The children learn a mild lesson--be careful what you wish for--but not in a life-changing way that gives you confidence they're going to live more wisely. And the Psammead doesn't really function as anything more than a freakily animated magic lamp.
If you want magic in the backyard, which is apparently what E. Nesbit was going for, Charlotte's Web runs rings around 5 children. But you can certainly see Nesbit's influence on Lewis and even perhaps on Dorothy L. Sayers. At least one of the Wimsey mysteries refers to a recent financial scandal, the Megatherium trust.
Having the knights' equipment come from different historical periods b/c the children knew about them only from pastiche illustrations in their When Knights Were Bold books was a good touch. The episode in which the baby grows up was amusing. The children learn a mild lesson--be careful what you wish for--but not in a life-changing way that gives you confidence they're going to live more wisely. And the Psammead doesn't really function as anything more than a freakily animated magic lamp.
If you want magic in the backyard, which is apparently what E. Nesbit was going for, Charlotte's Web runs rings around 5 children. But you can certainly see Nesbit's influence on Lewis and even perhaps on Dorothy L. Sayers. At least one of the Wimsey mysteries refers to a recent financial scandal, the Megatherium trust.