Five Children and It
Five Children and It
Five children discover something ancient and grumpy at the bottom of a gravel pit: a Psammead, a sand fairy with a magnificent beard and a magnificent temper. It can grant wishes, but only until sunset, and the wishes always go spectacularly, hilariously wrong. The children aren't foolish enough to ask for world peace or infinite wealth - they just want to be beautiful, or big, or rich for a day - but somehow these modest wishes unleash chaos that threatens their family, their identity, and quite possibly the fabric of reality itself. E. Nesbit understood something essential about childhood: that magic never solves anything, that wishes are dangerous, and that the people who love you might not recognize you even when you're beautiful. This is a book that knows children are clever, greedy, brave, and occasionally unbearable - and it loves them anyway. The humor still lands a century later because Nesbit wrote like a human being, not a children's author. If you've ever wanted something so badly you couldn't see what it would cost you, you need to meet the Psammead.
Editions
X-Ray
“For really there is nothing like wings for getting you into trouble. But, on the other hand, if you are in trouble, there is nothing like wings for getting you out of it.””
— E. Nesbit
“Trying not to believe things when in your heart you are almost sure they are true, is as bad for the temper as anything I know.””
— E. Nesbit
“Grown-up people find it very difficult to believe really wonderful things, unless they have what they call proof. But children will believe almost anything, and grown-ups know this. That is why they tell you that the earth is round like an orange, when you can see perfectly well that it is flat and lumpy; and why they say that the earth goes round the sun, when you can see for yourself any day that the sun gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night like a good sun it is, and the earth knows its place, and lies as still as a mouse.””
— E. Nesbit
“For London is like prison for children, especially if their relations are not rich.””
— E. Nesbit
“And that, my dear children, is the moral of this chapter. I did not mean it to have a moral, but morals are nasty forward beings, and will keep putting in their oars where they are not wanted. And since the moral has crept in, quite against my wishes, you might as well think of it....””
— E. Nesbit
“Child,” said the Sand-fairy sleepily, “I can only advise you to think before you speak” – “But I thought that you never give advice.”“That piece doesn’t count,” it said. “You’ll never take it! Besides, it’s not original. It’s in all the copy-books.””
— E. Nesbit
“Don't you know a Sand-fairy when you see one?" It looked so grieved and hurt that Jane hastened to say, "Of course I see you are, now. It's quite plain now one comes to look at you." "You came to look at me, several sentences ago,””
— E. Nesbit
“[I]t is most trying to feel enormously hungry and unspeakably sinful at one and the same time.””
— E. Nesbit
