Thursday, January 5, 2012

The Railway Children - by E. Nesbitt

The Railway Children by E. Nesbitt will need no introduction to most of my UK readers who will know this beloved classic for children from 1906.  (US Edition)  (£0.99  UK Edition)

Some of us may want to revisit those literary favorites we read in our youth and some of us may want to know what we missed. At a time when so called YA (Young Adult) books end up on the bestseller lists (The Hunger Games and The Book Thief come to mind) – I guess I do not have to excuse liking books written for younger readers.

The book has a promising beginning:

There were three of them. Roberta was the eldest. Of course, Mothers never have favourites, but if their Mother HAD had a favourite, it might have been Roberta. Next came Peter, who wished to be an Engineer when he grew up; and the youngest was Phyllis, who meant extremely well. Mother did not spend all her time in paying dull calls to dull ladies, and sitting dully at home waiting for dull ladies to pay calls to her.

There is a catastrophe and the family has to move:

As she turned away Roberta saw her face. She never forgot it.

"Oh, Mother," she whispered all to herself as she got into bed, "how brave you are! How I love you! Fancy being brave enough to laugh when you're feeling like THAT!"

Next day boxes were filled, and boxes and more boxes; and then late in the afternoon a cab came to take them to the station.

Aunt Emma saw them off. They felt that THEY were seeing HER off, and they were glad of it.

"But, oh, those poor little foreign children that she's going to governess!" whispered Phyllis. "I wouldn't be them for anything!"

It is always wonderful when you can pick up a book you read in your youth and find it is still good.


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