24
chapters; 318 pages
Subjects:
World War One, France, England, children, fantasy, Edith Nesbit, Five
children and it, Psammead, junior fiction (Year 5-8)
Synopsis
This book came out to
much acclaim as “an epic, heart-wrenching follow-on from E. Nesbit’s Five children and It stories” (from the
back cover) and won the Costa
Children’s Book of the Year award.
Five Children and It was published in 1902, with two
sequels: The phoenix and the carpet
(1904) and The story of the amulet
(1906). I read them all as a child and loved them, although I haven’t looked at
them again for a long time and I’m not sure if they are as widely read today.
In the Prologue (set
in 1905, and adapted from a chapter of The
story of the amulet), Cyril is 12, Anthea 11, Robert 9, Jane 7 and the
(youngest child) Lamb – actually Hilary – is still a baby. By the start of WW1
in 1914, they are old enough, in some cases, to go off and fight, or volunteer
as a VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) .
Because Cyril and
Anthea are almost grown up and often away, Kate Saunders adds another child
(Edie, aged 9) and she and the Lamb/Hilary, now 11, become the main characters.
The two of them rediscover the Psammead (a grumpy, wish-granting sand fairy - “you
pronounce it Sammy-ad”) and he stays with them for almost the duration of the
war. The story gets sadder and the mood more sombre as it gets closer to the
end.
The idea behind the
book – bringing these children from their Edwardian childhood into the horrors
of WW1 – is very clever. I did wonder if the theme of the Psammead’s “repentance” could be confusing for
children.
Reviews:
The Guardian calls it a “respectful homage” and says that “transplanting E Nesbit’s
much-loved characters into the trenches tugs at the heartstrings in a way
statistics can’t”.
“For all Saunders's
delight in channelling Nesbit's Edwardian sensibilities, this is not a
nostalgic book. It asks questions about lost innocence and the kind of stories
we used to tell ourselves. Saunders dedicates her
book "To all the boys and girls, 1914-18". Nesbit described her
characters as "not bad sorts on the whole; in fact, they were rather like
you". The same can be said, Saunders implies, about the doomed generation
that met its fate in Flanders fields.”
About the author
In this interview in the Telegraph, Kate Saunders talks about events in her own life
that background the story; some of it is very moving, and it made me
think about the book in a different way.
There’s another interview with her here on BBC news.
About E Nesbit
The Edith Nesbit
Society has its own website where you can read a sedate biography of Edith Nesbit (1858-1924).
But this article
in the Guardian paints a rather racier (and sadder) picture of her life.
Other books you might like:
Edith Nesbit also
wrote the much-loved classic The railway
children, published in 1906 and never out of print since.
No comments:
Post a Comment