Five Children on the Western Front

Product Information

Five Children and It (1902) was Nesbit's first story about the Psammead, an ancient and cantankerous sand fairy who granted wishes that lasted only for a day, landing the children in all manner of scrapes.

Home to William Golding, Sylvia Plath, Kazuo Ishiguro, Sally Rooney, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Max Porter, Ingrid Persaud, Anna Burns and Rachel Cusk, among many others, Faber is proud to publish some of the greatest novelists from the early twentieth century to today. There are still a few adults around who can recite "In Flanders Fields" but that is about all that is remembered about a war that changed society and civilization. I'm cautious of books like this one, rightfully I think, but Saunders does a good job - the tone and characterisation are better than expected, although the slang seems a little more over-the-top Blyton than Nesbit in places. There is ample opportunity for that to be played with in the central fantasy: in Nesbit's own Psammead mythology, only children can see and believe in the Psammead, not adults (except in exceptional cases like the Professor's which is an exception that in itself helps us to understand what is being framed as the major difference between most children and most adults). There are lots of humorous bits mixed in with the more sober moments, and the scenes of war are not a so graphic that they will scare young readers.A hand poured wax seal to finish it all off – great for keeping and putting in a journal or scrapbook as decoration! It is actually inaccurately named; it should be Six Children on the Western Front, with the addition to Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane, and the Lamb of a new sibling, Edie. She has also been a regular contributor to radio and television, with appearances on the Radio 4 programs Woman's Hour, Start the Week, and Kaleidoscope. And Edie is the most adorable addition: Cyril and Anthea are grown up, Robert and Jane are teenagers, and so it's through the eyes of Edie (9) and the Lamb (11) that we keep that sense of childlike wonder and belief in magic. One of the characters in this tender, clear-eyed and humorous novel remarks of the years before 1914 that "there were still happy endings in those days".

It is set in WWI, and is about five children and some sort of creature, which was described as a "Senior San fairy", and he can grant wishes. And poor Jane desperately wants to go to medical school, which her mother refuses to allow, afraid she won't ever get married if she does go. You do read the book feeling like not knowing Five Children and It is a big gaping gap in your knowledge, but that feeling passes as you get deeper and deeper into the book. The dawn of a Great War is occurring throughout Europe and such events stir unwelcome memories from the sand-fairy’s past. Taste and personal preference, as always, is what sways opinion in reviews and although I didn't hate it, I didn't like it.If I didn't know otherwise you could have convinced me this was a recently unearthed manuscript of Nesbit's. Since the last time the five Pembertons, Anthea, Cyril, Robert, Jane and the Lamb saw the Sand Fairy ten years ago, there has been an addition to the family, Edie. This book is packaged up in brown paper, string and a wax seal and will arrive in a box with all of our usual treats. If I hadn’t read Five Children and It or maybe read it a long time ago so it wasn’t fresh in my mind I think I would have loved this book.