Five Children & It by E. Nesbit

  

                                                             TO JOHN BLAND

                                                My Lamb, you are so very small,
                                             You have not learned to read at all.
                                            Yet never a printed book withstands
                                            The urgence of your dimpled hands.
                                             So, though this book is for yourself,
                                                Let mother keep it on the shelf
                                              Till you can read. O days that Pass,
                                              That day will come too soon, alas!*

And with this sweet dedication, Edith Nesbit begins her tale about five children and a Psammead (little wonder she refers to the creature as "it" in the title).  What is a Psammead, you might ask?  A Psammead is a Sand Fairy - a creature quite rare nowadays.

The five children are Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane, and the Lamb.  The four older children are the main protagonists, while the Lamb, their two year old brother, is a minor player in most of the adventures.  Another recurring character is Martha, a servant who takes care of the house and the Lamb.  The children's parents do not feature prominently in the story.

The children meet the Psammead (or Sammyadd, as they call him) on holiday in the country.  They are digging in the gravel pit - trying to reach Australia - when they unearth this strange, little creature.  The Psammead is not your typical fairy - sweet and with wings and a magic wand.  He is a small, furry creature, with "snail-like eyes."  He lives buried in the sand away from water, because water kills sand fairies.  As he tells the children, a long time ago people used to build sand castles for Sand Fairies.  The Psammeads enjoyed these delightful homes - until people began digging moats to go with the castles.

Just like beautiful fairies, the Psammead can grant wishes.  But his method is quite unorthodox.  He inflates himself and then lets out his breath.  Granting a wish exhausts the fairy and aggravates his already sullen nature.  The girls, though, treat him kindly.  In one touching scene, Anthea offers to let him sit in her lap to keep warm.  He does.  It's sweet, but I can't help but shudder at the thought of a warm, little, furry creature with "snail-like eyes" sitting in my lap.

The Psammead grants the children nine wishes over the course of the book.  Each wish turns into a misadventure as best and danger at worst.  But is it the children's naivety or the Psammead's sullen nature that causes the trouble?

I am a fan of E. Nesbit's books for children.  Her style is child-like.  She pictures things as children do and includes only the details that would appeal to children.  Her humor it witty and her tales imaginative.  She is very honest about the motives that drive us to do and act as we do.  I think it is this honesty that I particularly find real in her style of writing.

Her characters differ very little from story to story.  Anthea is quite like Bobby, from "The Railway Children", and Jane is just like Dora from "The Treasure Seekers."  The personalities alter little, but they are such fun to begin with that it makes little difference to me.  The pure, innocent fun is refreshing; the stories original; the setting always a delight.

I wish I had a first edition of this story - the cover is gorgeous.  But as the likelihood of finding a first edition of an E. Nesbit book is rare or way beyond the reach of my pocketbook, I found a very modern nice edition.  It is from the "Looking Glass Library", published by Random House.  It features the original illustrations by H.R. Millar.  Some may find the pictures outdated, but I love the Victorian artwork.

There are film adaptions of this story.  I haven't seen the 1991 BBC miniseries, but I did watch the 2004 version starring Freddie Highmore and Kenneth Branagh (in a very "un-Shakespearean" role).  The story is based during WWI, and tells the story of five children sent to the country because of the war.  Their father (Alex Jennings), is a pilot serving his country overseas.  The story has more of a feel of "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," with Freddie Highmore's character a bit like Edmund Pevensie, as interpreted in the 2005 a film adaption of the C.S. Lewis classic.  However, the screenplay writers borrowed from Lewis; Lewis did not borrow from Nesbit.  I enjoyed this version, though it is nothing at all like the book, so I would not recommend it as a substitute to reading the original story.  I would like to see another adaption - one that tells E. Nesbit's story.

Five Children and It is the first in a trilogy.  The following works are The Phoenix and the Carpet and The Story of the Amulet.  Before I finished the book, I had logged onto the library's website and requested the sequel.  This may show you how much I enjoyed the story!  It's a tale for all ages, but whether all ages will enjoy it, I don't know.  If you enjoy the adventures, magic, and cleverness of "Peter Pan", "Winnie the Pooh", or any other E. Nesbit tale, you will not be disappointed in this choice.  After reading the story you may find yourself wondering If I were to unearth a Psammead, what would I wish for?

*Five Children and It.  Nesbit, E.  1902.

"The Light Princess" by George MacDonald

     I became familiar with The Light Princess through a recorded dramatic reading - another treasure located at the local library.  It was the second MacDonald fairytale I heard, the first being At the Back of the North Wind.  The Light Princess is an easier read than The Golden Key, but it is not the latter's inferior. 
     The Light Princess begins like so many fairy tales:  a kingdom, a king and a queen facing the great dilemma of having no heir, a spell, a prince, even a witch.  The king is slightly pompous and comical, and the queen is serious and more sensible.  Eventually, the couple are blessed with the birth of their daughter.  The story may have been happy but uneventful if the king had not forgotten to invite his spiteful sister, Princess Makemnoit, to the christening.  Princess Makemnoit, easily forgotten since she is an awful person, is the instigator of all misery and sorrow that plagues the characters.
     To take her revenge for being overlooked, she casts a spell on the princess, depriving the baby girl of all her gravity.  The spell and its result are discovered one day when the princess miraculously floats to the ceiling of her nursery, put afloat by the wind coming in through the open window.  As the child grows up, her loss of gravity is felt keenly by the entire palace.
     The loss of gravity is a horrible condition.  Not only can the slightest breath of wind carry the princess away, but she has no gravity of spirit.  She knows neither sadness nor sorrow nor anything grave.  She laughs often, but even that lacks sincerity.
     King John and his queen decide to consult the college of Metaphysicians.  The materialist Hum-Drum and the spiritualist Kopy-Keck both try to solve the princess's problem, but the king and queen cannot possibly take their harsh advice.  Instead, a temporary solution presents itself when, by accident, the princess discovers that her gravity is restored whenever she is submerged in water.  From that day forward, the princess spends all her time swimming in the lake next to the palace.
      The hero of the tale - aye, the prince - meets the princess one evening as she is swimming in the lake.  She bewitches the prince, and he becomes her devoted admirer.  As, however, true love requires some gravity of mind, his love is not returned by the princess, who is light of body, mind, and heart.
     Princess Makemnoit learns of the princess's happiness and regained gravity in the lake, and, being the kill-joy that she is, she brings to life a giant serpent to drain the lake of all its water.  The princess, who, despite of her loss of gravity, loves the lake. As she watches the water mysteriously drain away, she begins to fade and draw close to death.  The king desperately searches for a way to save the lake and thus his daughter.  Finally, a message is found in the mud that was once covered by the lake:

                                       "Death alone from death can save.
                                       Love is death, and so is brave - 
                                       Love can fill the deepest grave.
                                       Love loves on beneath the wave."

          "If the lake should disappear, they must find the hole through which the water ran.  But it would be useless to try to stop it by any ordinary means.  There was but one effectual mode - The body of a living man could alone stanch the flow.  The man must give himself of his own will; and the lake must take his life as it filled.  Otherwise the offering would be of no avail.  If the nation could not provide one hero, it was time it should perish."* 

      Published in 1864, The Light Princess is a beautiful story - not devoid of its gravity to be sure.  As with The Golden Key, it has a deeper meaning, another level of understanding aside from its surface story.  It tells of a Prince who loved his princess with the truest, purest love.  But it has much more to offer than that: it reminds its reader of a greater love, indeed, the Greatest love story ever told.

*MacDonald, George.  The Light Princess.  United States of America:  The Meriden Gravure Company, 1969.  Print.

The Golden Key by George MacDonald

     I wish I could say that I found a copy of this book tucked away in a charming antique shop.  Yet the plain truth is that I became acquainted with this story by listening to a reading of The Golden Key, borrowed from the local library.  No embossed cover, not thick paper pages, no musty smell - which is probably best since I am allergic to dust, mildew, and the like.  What a tragic thing for an old-book collector such as myself!  Yet, this did not subtract from the interesting story which is The Golden Key.
     The protagonists of the fairytale are a girl named Tangle and a boy named Mossy.  Mossy's great-aunt tells him about a key that can be found at the end of the rainbow.  His father, the great-aunt tells Mossy, found the key.  Mossy decides that he too will find the key.  So he ventures into Fairyland to search for the end of the rainbow.  The rainbow in Fairyland is different from what we know as a rainbow.  It does not appear to be made of moisture and sunshine, but an actual place.  There is a world within the rainbow.  Mossy can actually see people moving in this strange, colorful world.  It is here, where his great-aunt said it would be, that Mossy finds the Golden Key.
     The merchant and his daughter, Tangle, live close Mossy and his great-aunt.  The merchant leaves Tangle to the charge of their two unkind and untidy servants.  The fairies of Fairyland dislike the two servants because they are messy, which is a thing that angers these fairies.  In an effort to rid themselves of the lazy servants, the fairies chase Tangle out of her home.  Tangle, frightened, runs into the forest.  She is followed by a flying fish that has feathers like those of a bird - it is an air fish.  It leads her to a cottage, owned by a woman who has been waiting for her.  The woman is thousands of years old, and yet she is lovely.  She is wise, too.  Tangle stays at the cottage belonging to this woman, who becomes her grandmother.  The day the air fish brings her to this cottage is three years after she ran away from her home.
     The woman sends another air fish to bring Mossy to her.  When he arrives, the woman entrusts Tangle to Mossy's care, and the two journey to find the lock that the Golden Key will unlock and to discover the land where shadows fall.  The children see many curious yet wondrous things.  Their journey lasts for years, and they develop a strong friendship - though it is not said that they fall in love.  When Tangle and Mossy finally come to the door the Golden Key unlocks, they begin the greatest adventure of their lives.
     The Golden Key, published in 1867, is one of the deepest stories of the fantasy genre I have ever read.  While the plot is short and simple - no battles involving thousands of soldiers or wizards weaving spells - it has a unique charm and leaves you with a feeling that you have only had a mere whiff of a scrumptious pie or cake.  The story is like a hard boiled egg - to use an unromantic simile.  The hard boiled egg has the shell, the egg white, and, at the center, the golden yoke.  This story requires three stages of understanding.  I have barely accomplished the first stage.  I am by no means a literature professor, but I know that there is much to be learned and gathered from this story.  What are the themes?  What do each of the characters represent?  What is the Golden Key?  The story raises endless questions.
     To be honest, The Golden Key is not my favorite George MacDonald story.  This is simply because the story is far above my understanding and full comprehension.  Perhaps it will endear itself to the reader with each consecutive reading.  But whether it becomes your favorite fairytale or not, it will arouse thoughts and speculations, leaving you hungry for a deeper, richer understanding of MacDonald's short story The Golden Key. 

For more information about George MacDonald, please visit:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Macdonald

"Peter Pan and Wendy" by J.M. Barrie

     "All children, except one, grow up."  Since Peter Pan first flew into the pages of literature, he has enchanted and endeared himself to generations of children that, unlike him, did grow up, and to adults who never fully lost the innocence, joy, and excitement of youth.
     First written as a play in 1904, "Peter and Wendy" was published as a book in 1911.  I have seen several movie and television adaptions of this lovely story, but none fully do justice to Barrie's amazing wit and incomparable style.  It is a wondrous testimony to its author that after one hundred years people still read and love his masterpiece.  Perhaps this is because Peter Pan is not merely a child's book: it is much more.  Its themes, the depth of its characters, and its insight into life fascinates us just as much as the tale.
     I have included a couple of excerpts from this timeless book that I hope encourages you to read and cherish "Peter and Wendy":

     '[Mrs. Darling] was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth.  Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner.
      'The way Mr. Darling won her [Mrs. Darling] was this: the many gentlemen who had been boys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved her, and they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr. Darling, who took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her.  He got all of her, except the innermost box and the kiss.  He never knew about the box, and in time he gave up trying for the kiss.  Wendy thought Napoleon could have got it, but I can picture him trying, and then going off in a passion, slamming the door.'* 

     And about a special place in Neverland, Barrie writes . . .
     'If you shut your eyes and are a lucky one, you may see at times a shapeless pool of lovely pale colours suspended in the darkness; then if you squeeze your eyes tighter, the pool begins to take shape, and the colours become so vivid that with another squeeze they must go on fire.  But just before they go on fire you see the lagoon.  This is the nearest you ever get to it on the mainland, just one heavenly moment; if there could be two moments you might see the surf and hear the mermaids singing.'*

     * Barrie, James M.  Peter Pan and Wendy.  United Kingdom: Hodder & Stoughton, 1911.  Print.