Five Children and It

Written by Edith Nesbit

Narrated by Jenny Lundak

A family of five children moves from London to the English countryside. While playing in a gravel pit soon after the move, the children discover an ancient and rather grumpy, sand-fairy known as the Psammead. The magical being agrees to grant one wish of theirs per day, but those wishes rarely turn out as they expect and they send them on one adventure after the other. Edith Nesbit Bland (1858-1924) was a British author, activist and poet, who published an extensive amount of children’s books under the pen name “E. Nesbit”, which are still widely read today. Amongst her most famous novels are “The Railway Children,” “The Story of the Treasure Seekers,” and “Five Children and It”.

• Language: English
• Publisher: SAGA Egmont
• Release date: May 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9788726472417

Edith Nesbit

Edith Nesbit (1858-1924) was an English writer of children’s literature. Born in Kennington, Nesbit was raised by her mother following the death of her father—a prominent chemist—when she was only four years old. Due to her sister Mary’s struggle with tuberculosis, the family travelled throughout England, France, Spain, and Germany for years. After Mary passed, Edith and her mother returned to England for good, eventually settling in London where, at eighteen, Edith met her future husband, a bank clerk named Hubert Bland. The two—who became prominent socialists and were founding members of the Fabian Society—had a famously difficult marriage, and both had numerous affairs. Nesbit began her career as a poet, eventually turning to children’s literature and publishing around forty novels, story collections, and picture books. A contemporary of such figures of Lewis Carroll and Kenneth Grahame, Nesbit was notable as a writer who pioneered the children’s adventure story in fiction. Among her most popular works are The Railway Children (1906) and The Story of the Amulet (1906), the former of which was adapted into a 1970 film, and the latter of which served as a profound influence on C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series. A friend and mentor to George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells, Nesbit’s work has inspired and entertained generations of children and adults, including such authors as J.K. Rowling, Noël Coward, and P.L. Travers.