Other editions of book Five Children And It : By E. Nesbit - Illustrated

First written in 1902, this is one of Edith Nesbit's best loved children's stories. It all begins when a group of five children – Robert, Anthea, Cyril, Jane, and their baby brother, the Lamb - move from London to the countryside of Kent. While playing in a gravel pit, they discover a rather grumpy, ugly and occasionally malevolent sand-fairy known as the Psammead who is compelled to grant one wish of theirs per day. The effects of each wish last until sundown. All the wishes granted to the children go hilariously wrong. When they wish to be beautiful, nobody recognises them and they are shut out of the house. When they wish to be rich, they get a stack of gold coins but nobody will take them. When they wish for wings they find themselves stuck on a tall tower at sunset. When they wish that their baby brother was older, he turns into a grown-up and bosses them about. When Robert wishes he was bigger than the baker's boy (who has beaten him in a scrap) he becomes eleven feet tall. There are many more adventures... but you will need to listen and find out for yourselves....

To Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane, and their baby brother, the house in the country promises a summer of freedom and play. But when they accidently uncover an accident Psammead--or Sand-fairy--who has the power to make wishes come true, they find themselves having the holiday of a lifetime, sharing one thrilling adventure after another.Asleep since dinosaurs roamed the earth, the ill-tempered, odd--looking Psammead --with his spider-shaped body, bat's ears, and snail's eyes --grudgingly agrees to grant the children one wish per day. Soon, though the children discover that their wishes have a tendancy to turn out quite differnetly than expected. Whatever they wish whether it's to fly like a bird, live in a mighty castle, or have an immense fortune --something goes terribly wrong, hilariously wrong.Then an accidental wish has horrible consequences, and the children are faced with a difficult choice: to let an innoncent manbe charged with a crime or to lose for all time their gift of magical wishes. Five Children and It is one of E. Nesbit's most beloved tales of enchantment.

Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane, and their baby brother, the house in the country promises a summer of freedom and play. But when they accidently uncover an accident Psammead--or Sand-fairy--who has the power to make wishes come true, they find themselves having the holiday of a lifetime, sharing one thrilling adventure after another.Asleep… (more)To Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane, and their baby brother, the house in the country promises a summer of freedom and play. But when they accidently uncover an accident Psammead--or Sand-fairy--who has the power to make wishes come true, they find themselves having the holiday of a lifetime, sharing one thrilling adventure after another.Asleep since dinosaurs roamed the earth, the ill-tempered, odd--looking Psammead --with his spider-shaped body, bat's ears, and snail's eyes --grudgingly agrees to grant the children one wish per day. Soon, though the children discover that their wishes have a tendancy to turn out quite differnetly than expected. Whatever they wish whether it's to fly like a bird, live in a mighty castle, or have an immense fortune --something goes terribly wrong, hilariously wrong.Then an accidental wish has horrible consequences, and the children are faced with a difficult choice: to let an innoncent manbe charged with a crime or to lose for all time their gift of magical wishes. Five Children and It is one of E. Nesbit's most beloved tales of enchantment.

While playing in a gravel pit near their new home, five children come across a Psammead, or sand fairy. The sand fairy is compelled to grant the children one wish per day, and since the children ask for such fantastic wishes, they do not turn to stone at sundown as wishes of the past did. Through these wishes, the children have many magical adventures. In this book, the children, Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane and the Lamb begin their trilogy of adventures.

How is this book unique? Illustrations includedOriginal & Unabridged EditionOne of the best books to readClassic historical fiction booksExtremely well formattedFive Children and It is a children's novel by English author E. Nesbit. Like Nesbit's The Railway Children, the story begins when a group of children move from London to the countryside of Kent. The five children – Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane, and their baby brother, known as the Lamb – are playing in a gravel pit when they uncover a rather grumpy, ugly, and occasionally malevolent Psammead or sand-fairy, who has the ability to grant wishes. He persuades the children to take one wish each day to be shared among them, with the caveat that the wishes will turn to stone at sunset. This, apparently, used to be the rule in the Stone Age, when all that children wished for was food, the bones of which then became fossils. The five children's first wish is to be "as beautiful as the day". The wish ends at sunset and its effects simply vanish, leading the Psammead to observe that some wishes are too fanciful to be changed to stone. All the wishes go comically wrong. The children wish to be beautiful, but the servants do not recognise them and shut them out of the house. They wish to be rich, then find themselves with a gravel-pit full of gold spade guineas that no shop will accept as they are no longer in circulation, so they can't buy anything. A wish for wings seems to be going well, but at sunset the children find themselves stuck on top of a church bell tower with no way down, getting them into trouble with the gamekeeper who must take them home (though this wish has the happy side-effect of introducing the gamekeeper to the children's housemaid, who later marries him). Robert is bullied by the baker's boy, then wishes that he was bigger — whereupon he becomes eleven feet tall, and the other children show him at a travelling fair for coins. They also wish themselves into a castle, only to learn that it is being besieged, while a wish to meet real Red Indians ends with the children nearly being scalped.

The five children find a cantankerous sand fairy, a psammead, in a gravel pit. Every day 'It' will grant each of them a wish that lasts until sunset, often with disastrous consequences.Never out of print since 1902. The Introduction to this edition examines Nesbit's life and her reading, showing the change in childrens' literature from Victorian times.

"Five Children and It" magically illustrates the wisdom of the saying "be careful what you wish for." Edith Nesbit's classic children's fairy tale is the story of five children who while spending a summer at the house in the country discover Psammead, a sand fairy. Psammead, a strange looking creature, has the power to make wishes come true and promises to grant the children one magical wish per day. However, as the kids soon discover, the wishes don't turn out exactly as the kids envision. Each wish leads to unexpected mishaps and adventures in this classic tale of fantasy and adventure.

"Five Children and It" magically illustrates the wisdom of the saying "be careful what you wish for." Edith Nesbit's classic children's fairy tale is the story of five children who while spending a summer at the house in the country discover Psammead, a sand fairy. Psammead, a strange looking creature, has the power to make wishes come true and promises to grant the children one magical wish per day. However, as the kids soon discover, the wishes don't turn out exactly as the kids envision. Each wish leads to unexpected mishaps and adventures in this classic tale of fantasy and adventure.