Books with title The Water-Babies illustrated

The protagonist is Tom, a young chimney sweep, who falls into a river after encountering an upper-class girl named Ellie and being chased out of her house. There he drowns and is transformed into a "water-baby",[2] as he is told by a caddisfly—an insect that sheds its skin—and begins his moral education. The story is thematically concerned with Christian redemption, though Kingsley also uses the book to argue that England treats its poor badly, and to question child labour, among other themes. Tom embarks on a series of adventures and lessons, and enjoys the community of other water-babies once he proves himself a moral creature. The major spiritual leaders in his new world are the fairies Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby (a reference to the Golden Rule), Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, and Mother Carey. Weekly, Tom is allowed the company of Ellie, who became a water-baby after he did. Grimes, his old master, drowns as well, and in his final adventure, Tom travels to the end of the world to attempt to help the man where he is being punished for his misdeeds. Tom helps Grimes to find repentance, and Grimes will be given a second chance if he can successfully perform a final penance. By proving his willingness to do things he does not like, if they are the right things to do, Tom earns himself a return to human form, and becomes "a great man of science" who "can plan railways, and steam-engines, and electric telegraphs, and rifled guns, and so forth". He and Ellie are united, although the book states that they never marry (claiming that in fairy tales, no one beneath the rank of prince and princess ever marries).

A classic since its first publication in 1863, The Water-Babies is the story of a little chimney sweep named Tom and his magical adventures beneath the waves. The ill-treated Tom flees his dangerous toil and his cruel master, Grimes. When he jumps into a cool stream to clean the soot off himself, he becomes a water baby, cleaner and happier than he has ever been, in a hidden fairy world. There, Tom meets haughty dragonflies, makes friends with a slow-witted lobster, and dodges hungry otters. Eventually, he meets the other water-babies and their clever rulers, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid and Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby. After a long and arduous quest to the Other-end-of-Nowhere, young Tom achieves his heart's desire.

Once upon a time there was a little chimney-sweep, and his name was Tom. That is a short name, and you have heard it before, so you will not have much trouble in remembering it. He lived in a great town in the North country, where there were plenty of chimneys to sweep, and plenty of money for Tom to earn and his master to spend. He could not read nor write, and did not care to do either; and he never washed himself, for there was no water up the court where he lived. He had never been taught to say his prayers. He never had heard of God, or of Christ, except in words which you never have heard, and which it would have been well if he had never heard.

Charles Kingsley was an English clergyman, professor, historian and novelist who felt a great concern for social reform, particularly regarding child labor practices. Having read Darwin's "On the Origin of the Species", he was also a proponent of the theory of evolution; however, he credited evolution to God, proposing that science and Christian faith could exist harmoniously. Kingsley encouraged an open-minded attitude, and the willingness to use one's imagination. His 1863 classic, "The Water Babies", is a sort of fairy tale about a boy chimney sweep who drowns in a river, and is there transformed into a "water baby." The story relates the moral education that Tom receives in a series of adventures and lessons among the community of water babies. Kingsley expresses his concerns with child labor, as well as his ideas on Christian redemption, in this entertaining and somewhat satirical story.

Charles Kingsley: The Water Babies When Tom, an ill-treated little chimney-sweep, jumps into a clear, cool stream to clean himself something magical happens; he is turned into a tiny water baby by the fairies. He enters a strange, magical underwater world, and travels beyond the world's end to the other end-of-nowhere, getting into all sorts of scrapes and encountering creatures beautiful and frightening along the way. He also learns many important lessons - it is a voyage of discovery that Tom will never forget. The Journey of a little chimney-sweep water-baby through rivers and storms, under sea and over iceberg, is still a classic, wonderful children's adventure

"The Water-Babies" by Charles Kingsley is best described with reference to J. M. Barrie's more famous work "Peter Pan", both of which belong in the canon of Victorian fairytales. Kingsley's work is poised between two words: the world of Christianity and the whimsical realm of fairies, and the onset of the scientific and historical developments that resulted in the evolution theory, industrial factories and the War. Although certainly not as famous as Barrie's tale of the boy that never grew up, Kingsley's story is equally fascinating, though a bit more difficult to read.

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