Five Children and It

Five Children and It is a fantasy novel for children by the English writer E. Nesbit. It first appeared in 1902 as a series of monthly installments in the Strand Magazine, under the title *The Psammead, or the Gifts*, running from April to December. These stories were later expanded into a full novel, published that same year. This book is the first in a trilogy, followed by *The Phoenix and the Carpet* (1904) and *The Story of the Amulet* (1906). Since its original release, it has remained continuously in print.

The story opens with five siblings—Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane, and their baby brother Hilary, nicknamed "the Lamb" because he is the youngest and follows the others like a lamb—moving from London to the Kent countryside. While playing in a gravel pit, they unearth a grumpy, ugly, and sometimes spiteful creature called a Psammead, a sand-fairy that can grant wishes. It convinces the children to make one shared wish each day, with the catch that the wishes turn to stone at sunset. This rule, the Psammead explains, dates back to the Stone Age, when children only wished for flint axes and deer, and the leftover bones and stone tools became fossils. Their first wish—to be "as beautiful as the day"—makes them beautiful until sunset, when they revert to normal, leading the Psammead to note that some wishes are too fanciful to fossilize.

Every wish goes comically wrong. When the children wish to be beautiful, their servants don't recognize them and lock them out. Wishing for riches fills the gravel pit with gold spade guineas, but no shop accepts the outdated coins. A wish for wings goes well until sunset strands them atop a church bell tower, forcing the gamekeeper to rescue them—though this introduces him to their housemaid, whom he later marries. Robert, bullied by a baker's boy, wishes to be bigger and becomes eleven feet tall, so the others exhibit him at a fair for money. They wish themselves into a castle, only to find it under siege, and a wish to meet real Red Indians nearly gets them scalped. The baby, the Lamb, suffers from two bad wishes: one makes everyone want him, forcing the children to fend off kidnappers and Gypsies; another makes him grow instantly into a selfish young man who abandons them. Finally, a careless wish brings a wealthy woman's jewelry to their home, threatening to frame the gamekeeper for theft.