The Railway Children - E Nesbit

Published by Arcturus Publishing Limited: Bermondsey Street, London, 2019.
First published 1905.

Apparently E Nesbit is known for two books: Five Children and It, which Elise and I read a few years ago, and this novel, The Railway Children, which we have just finished now! Although The Railway Children is much more realistic than Five Children - in which the titular 'It' was a sand-fairy who granted wishes - both novels have a lot of similarities in style: both books have fairly self-contained and occasionally over-long chapters that follow a group of siblings in a remote location, without much parental oversight, who get into numerous adventures, many involving a level of humour but also a level of pathos... in this book, the latter is provided by the absence of the children's father, who - it emerges over time - has been imprisoned for some unspecified crime.

So much for the similarities.

In The Railway Children, it may come as no surprise that a railway features heavily! The three children (Roberta aka Bobbie, Peter, and Phyllis aka Phil) love watching the trains on the nearby railway, and slowly get pulled in to adventures revolving around the station, the loading bay, railway tunnels, passengers and signalmen. At times the adventures involve elements that could go quite badly, and this adds a little bit of high drama to the proceedings.

Bobbie, being a bit older than her siblings, is also able to pick up on what is going on for her family a little better than the other children. The fact that she notices when her mother is worried, and even able to figure out where her father is, is handled well in the book, and is quite moving in moments.

I totally get why these two books are popular. Out of the two, I might slightly prefer the realism of this book to the wackiness of Five Children, but both are books I could see myself reading to Ezekiel in a few years.

Completed with Elise, 22 May 2025.



(Elise Books)

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