Five Children and It (MG)

Five Children and It. E. Nesbit. 1902/2004. Puffin Classics. 240 pages.

The house was three miles from the station, but before the dusty hired fly had rattled along for five minutes the children began to put their heads out of the carriage window and to say, 'Aren't we nearly there?' And every time they passed a house, which was not very often, they all said, 'Oh, is this it?' But it never was, till they reached the very top of the hill, just past the chalk-quarry and before you come to the gravel-pit. And then there was a white house with a green garden and an orchard beyond, and mother said, 'Here we are!'

It has been almost two years since I first discovered E. Nesbit. Five Children and It was the very first of her novels that I read, and it was definitely LOVE from the very beginning.

The five children are Robert, Cyril, Anthea, Jane, and Lamb. The 'it' is a sand fairy--a Psammead. The four children discover him one day during their summer vacation while they're digging in a nearby sand pit. They're quite delighted to learn that he can grant wishes. Though it's easy for anyone to see that he doesn't like granting wishes all that much. Still, the children are happy to think of one wish after another after another. A wish per day is what they're allowed. And oh the wishes they think up!!! But it doesn't take them very long to realize that they're not all that smart and clever with those wishes. For almost every day their wish leads them into TROUBLE. If wishing leads to trouble, why wish for anything? Well, even bad wishes make for a way to spend the day.

This book is so much fun! Just a delight to spend time with these characters. I'd definitely recommend it!

My favorite quotes:

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 as it is, and the earth knows its place, and lies as still as a mouse. (5)

I daresay you have often thought what you would do if you had three wishes given you, and have despised the old man and his wife in the black-pudding story, and felt certain that if you had the chance you could think of three really useful wishes without a moment's hesitation. These children had often talked this matter over, but, now the chance had come suddenly to them, they could not make up their minds. (17)

But the happening of strange things, even if they are not completely pleasant things, is more amusing than those times when nothing happens but meals, and they are not always completely pleasant, especially on the days when it is cold mutton or hash. (54)

Lending ears was common in Roman times, as we learn from Shakespeare; but I fear I am getting too instructive. (59)

When the frock was darned, the start for the gravel-pit was delayed by Martha's insisting on everybody's washing its hands -- which was nonsense, because nobody had been doing anything at all, except Jane, and how can you get dirty doing nothing? That is a difficult question, and I cannot answer it on paper. In real life I could very soon show you -- or you me, which is much more likely. (59)

It is very wise to let children choose exactly what they like, because they are very foolish and inexperienced, and sometimes they will choose a really instructive thing without meaning to. (85)

The people who decide what the weather is to be, and put its orders down for it in the newspaper every morning, said afterwards that it was the hottest day there had been for years. They had ordered it to be 'warmer -- some showers', and warmer it certainly was. In fact it was so busy being warmer that it had no time to attend to the order about showers, so there weren't any. (86)

'I was always generous from a child,' said the Sand-fairy. 'I've spent the whole of my waking hours in giving. But one thing I won't give --that's advice.'
'You see,' Anthea went on, 'it's such a wonderful thing -- such a splendid, glorious chance. It's so good and kind and dear of you to give us our wishes, and it seems such a pity it should all be wasted just because we are too silly to know what to wish for.'
Anthea had meant to say that -- and she had not wanted to say it before the others. It's one thing to say you're silly, and quite another to say that other people are.
'Child,' said the Sand-fairy sleepily, 'I can only advise you to think before you speak--'
'But I thought you never gave advice.'
'That piece doesn't count,' it said. 'You'll never take it! Besides it's not original. It's in all the copybooks.' (89-90)

© 2011 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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Posted in 1902 , brothers and/or sisters , children's classic , family , friendship , international literature , J Fantasy , J Fiction , library book , wish fulfillment

The Virginian

The Virginian. Owen Wister. 1902. Penguin Classics. 370 pages.

Some notable sight was drawing the passengers, both men and women, to the window; and therefore I rose and crossed the car to see what it was. I saw near the track an enclosure, and round it some laughing men, and inside it some whirling dust, and amid the dust some horses, plunging, huddling, and dodging. They were cow ponies in a corral, and one of them would not be caught, no matter who threw the rope.

I do not read many westerns. (If I remember correctly, this is only my second or third western. Depending on if you count These is My Words by Nancy E. Turner. My first western was Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey.) In fact, I have always believed myself to be completely allergic to the genre. Me? Like a western?! Really?! Well, I did more than like this one. I loved it. I maybe even loved, loved, loved it. While I'm not sure that I can echo what Dolce Bellezza said in her review: "It will definitely be in my top ten list for the year, and quite possibly for my life." I definitely agree that it is worth reading. I was very happy to be so surprised!

The Virginian is a collection of interconnected stories. Some are more "connected" than others. Some of the stories are told through a first person account, a first person narrator, whom we come to know simply as Tenderfoot or The Tenderfoot. He's an Eastern man that has come west to Wyoming territory. And The Virginian, our real hero, is his protector as this newbie is learning his way.

When Judge Henry ascertained that nothing could prevent me from losing myself, that it was not uncommon for me to saunter out after breakfast with a gun and in thirty minutes cease to know north from south, he arranged for my protection. He detailed an escort for me; and the escort was once more the trustworthy man! The poor Virginian was taken from his work and his comrades and set to playing nurse for me. And for a while this humiliation ate into his untamed soul. It was his lugubrious lost to accompany me in my rambles, preside over my blunders, and save me from calamitously passing into the next world. He bore it in courteous silence, except when speaking was necessary. He would show me the lower ford, which I could never find for myself, generally mistaking a quicksand for it. He would tie my horse properly. He would recommend me not to shoot my rifle at a white-tailed deer in the particular moment that the outfit wagon was passing behind the animal on the further side of the brush. There was seldom a day that he was not obliged to hasten and save me from sudden death or from ridicule, which is worse. Yet never once did he lose his patience; and his gentle, slow voice, and apparently lazy manner remained the same, whether we were sitting at lunch together, or up in the mountains during a hunt, or whether he was bringing me back my horse, which had run away again because I had again forgotten to throw the reins over his head and let them trail. (45)

But other stories are told in third person. Through a series of adventures, we get to know The Virginian; we get to know the people close to The Virginian. The men he works with and respects. The men he works with and doesn't respect. His friends. His enemies. My favorite of these may just be the woman, the "school teacher spinster" whom he falls in love with, Miss Molly Wood. 

 I found myself enjoying not just the characters, not just the stories, but the writing style itself. After the clumsiness of Zane Grey (at least in Riders of the Purple Sage) I was happy to see a western written by someone who could really write. There was just something about this one that worked for me. It was dramatic. It was suspenseful. It was humorous. It was emotional. It was romantic--in places. Some of my favorite scenes were the ones between The Virginian and Miss Molly Wood. I loved their courtship. How steady he was, how stubborn she was. How he took the time to read *most* of the books she loaned him. How he was fond of a good book--Shakespeare especially. But how he really didn't get why she loved Jane Austen so much! I liked their conversations on the books he read. I liked his conversations with her in general.

But The Virginian isn't just a romance. I mean there is a happily ever after at the end. But in between all the courting scenes--and there are really only a handful--The Virginian is busy working and riding and managing the Judge's ranch--he's foreman--and generally seeing that justice is done. (Because there are cattle thieves about!) So there is plenty of action and adventure and humor. There's plenty of good fun in this one. But it's not without its darker moments, its life-and-death moments.

Favorite quotes:

The Virginian was grave in bearing and of infrequent speech; but he kept a song going--a matter of some seventy-nine verses. Seventy-eight were quite unprintable, and rejoiced his brother cow-punchers monstrously. (62)

No one of her admirers had ever been like this creature. The fringed leathern chaperreros, the cartridge belt, the flannel shirt, the knotted scarf at the neck, these things were now an old story to her. Since her arrival she had seen young men and old in plenty dressed thus. But worn by the man now standing by her door, they seemed to radiate romance. (83)

Molly Wood was regarding him saucily. "I don't think I like you," said she.
"That's all square enough. You're goin' to love me before we get through. I wish yu'd come a-ridin', ma'am."
"Dear, dear, dear! So I'm going to love you? How will you do it? I know men think that they only need to sit and look strong and make chests at a girl--"
"Goodness gracious! I ain't makin' any chests at yu'!" Laughter overcame him for a moment, and Miss Wood liked his laugh very much. "Please come a-ridin," he urged. "It's the prettiest kind of a day."
She looked at him frankly, and there was a pause. "I will take back two things that I said to you," she then answered him. "I believe that I do like you. And I know that if I went riding with you, I should not have an immature protector." (85)

"And now I'll not see you for quite a while. I am going a long way. But I'll be very busy. And bein' busy always keeps me from grievin' too much about you."
Strange is woman! She would rather have heard some other last remark than this.
"Oh, very well!" she said. "I'll not miss you either."
He smiled at her. "I doubt if yu' can help missin' me," he remarked. And he was gone at once, galloping on his Monte horse. Which of the two won a victory this day? (94)

If words were meant to conceal our thoughts, melody is perhaps still thicker veil for them. (142)

© 2011 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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Posted in 1902 , adult fiction , adult western , classics , library book