Loading Search

• Buy this Book
• Book Creators
• Related Blog Posts
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Facebook

ANITA SILVEY begins her entry on Edith Nesbit by observing, "One wonders if Edith Nesbit was at all aware of just how unconventional her children's novels were and that they would determine the direction for both realistic family stories and fantasy in the twentieth century." All true, and the gentle realism (so unlike the escapist adventures of her contemporaries Barrie, Baum, Shepherd, and Graha... More

ANITA SILVEY begins her entry on Edith Nesbit by observing, "One wonders if Edith Nesbit was at all aware of just how unconventional her children's novels were and that they would determine the direction for both realistic family stories and fantasy in the twentieth century." All true, and the gentle realism (so unlike the escapist adventures of her contemporaries Barrie, Baum, Shepherd, and Grahame) is based upon real situations and real people. In this story, the three children have to move abruptly from a comfortable suburban, middle-class home to a spartan, unheated farmhouse close to a railroad. What the children are not told (but manage to find out) is that their father is in jail for a crime he did not commit. What they can see is that their mother is, to put it mildly, at her wit's end. How the children cope with this unexplained disruption, how they save a train from certain disaster, how they manage to insinuate themselves into the hearts and lives of the community, how they cope with a bewildering array of situations over which they have no control and less understanding is the platform on which Nesbit builds the book (events, not coincidentally, reflective of her own life that took its own turn for the worse when her husband, already ill with smallpox, lost all his money and it became clear she would have to write to survive). Beautifully (maybe a little too beautifully) illustrated in color wash drawings by Dryhurst, the only hardcover edition of this beloved and enduring children's classic.

You must be a member of JacketFlap to add a video to this page. Please Log In or Register.