The Railway Children

Again E. Nesbit shows herself expert at showing-not-telling, and at writing for anyone and everyone. With the story told from the point of view of the children, and aimed at children, all anyone under a certain height level is going to understand is that the father of the family goes away one night and does not come back, and the mother tells the three that he is away on business – and everything changes. Mother is upset or sad all the time, even when pretending otherwise. The children are made to understand that they are now poor – for a while. And almost overnight they pick up and leave their home – taking all the furniture the children deem "ugly" and Mother deems "useful", but few of their pretty things – and move out to a show more cottage in the country and Mother begins writing most of the day and far into the night. And Father does not come back.

I can't think how this story could be told more poignantly than as it is, obliquely through the children's eyes. Peter and Roberta (Bobbie) and Phyllis are, of course, bright children, and good ones, well brought up and attentive and conscientious – but they are wrapped in the happy oblivion of what seems to have been an upper middle class upbringing, wanting for no essential and few non-essentials, a world in which it is utterly and in all other ways inconceivable that anyone could ever dream their father did anything wrong. As it happens, of course, they are correct, but even had their father been in truth Jack the Ripper they would have been difficult to convince. They are essentially self-involved, viewing the world only as it affects them; for Peter and Phyllis it is enough that their mother tells them their father is away on business and they mustn't worry. They are upset when she is upset, but otherwise they are content and involved in their own lives. Bobbie is more attentive, more outwardly focused, and seems to step away from her childhood with this book.

Mother is, in this story, utterly brilliant – and I don't think that's just because the point of view is thoroughly sympathetic. She does a tremendous job of protecting her children – whisking them away from their old environment before they can hear a whisper of what has really happened to their father.

And of course the children are brilliant too. Roberta especially is rather magnificent. I love the narrator's frank statement that she hopes the reader does not mind her paying particular attention to Bobbie, but she has become rather a favorite. And I also love the equally frank assessment of her tendency to a) interfere or b) help lame dogs over stiles or c) help others, depending on who you ask – she can't help herself from making every effort to do something, and feels things very deeply, and this does not always make for easy relations with others.

The realism of E. Nesbit's writing is a bit dinged by the heroic role of the children during the summer of the story. Not to spoil things, but the events the three of them become involved in might, individually, be acceptable; all together it's a little bit ridiculous. But for the original target audience it would be so much fun. For me, a good bit older than the target? Also fun – and I admit to choking up at the climax. Oh, and Karen Savage, the narrator of the Librivox recording? Absolutely terrific. show less

A big part of me goes, "Oh boy! A bunch of rich kids meddle in everyone's affairs and of course fix everything with the power of their pluck and sheer Britishness! Great!" but I can't deny that these kids are pretty damn likable and that Nesbit has a real way with writing from a child's perspective.

Another in a long line of children's classics that I missed during my own childhood - I was too busy reading Star Wars and Star Trek books in the period of my own tentative entry into literature - so I'm glad that I have the opportunity now, with my own children grown old enough to read, to see what I might have missed.

"The Railway Children" is a curious one, a slightly episodic book in that most of the adventures practically stand by themselves, yet are sufficiently linked to make a proper book of it - the same is true, I believe, of "Anne of Green Gables." The story concerns a mother and her three children who are forced to move to the country after the arrest of the father. The children get up to all sorts of adventures, most of show more which revolve around rescuing the locals from one mishap or another. The final chapters are most interesting, considering that it's over a century since the book was written, as the eldest child suddenly has a conversation with her writer mother (clearly Nesbit herself) about how wonderful it would be if life could resolve itself so neatly as literature - before the book resolving itself in exactly that way.

The book is certainly dated in some respects, but the worst aspect has to be the class consciousness on display - and the problematic nature of this aspect is not just me being modern and criticising a work outside of the context of when it was written. True, there were clear class distinctions back then - as there are now - and these were accepted as being the way of the world, but still: an upper-middle-class family fall on hard times, have to co-exist with the relatively uneducated working class, and who benefits most? The working class, obviously, for without the intervention of these too-good-to-be-true children half of them would have perished. Oh, and it just so turns out that the working class aren't all bad after all - wouldn't you know it! show less

Originally published serially in The London Magazine, E. Nesbit's childhood classic The Railway Children was first released as a book in 1906, and follows the story of three siblings - Bobbie (Roberta), Peter and Phyllis - who find their lives mysteriously transformed when their father is taken away one night, and they must move to the country with their mother. Here, at Three Chimneys house, the children befriend the locals, observe the railway - which becomes a central facet of their lives - and attempt to resolve the issue of their father's disappearance. When the three learn that he has been accused of espionage, they are determined to prove his innocence, a project in which they are aided by the Old Gentleman, a regular railroad show more passenger whom they have befriended...

A book I have read many times, mostly recently for a course in children's literature, The Railway Children is an engaging story of three young people and their many adventures. It reflects the late-Victorian fascination with trains and the railroad - which are here the means of freeing an innocent man, and reuniting a family - as well as its creator's social views and interests. It's tempting to see a little of Nesbit in the children's mother, who bravely picks up her pen to earn a living for the family, when her husband is taken away, or to see the emphasis put on helping others in the right way - the importance of giving aid that is not perceived as charity, for instance, to avoid wounding the pride and self-respect of others - as a reflection of the author's views as a Fabian. However interesting any such references may be, this is also a book that has appeal as a story, one in which a happy family is torn apart, before eventually being reunited. The children's adventures in between make for entertaining reading! show less

Children who have grown up with Matilda, The Dumb Bunnies or The Cat in the Hat can't really appreciate what an advance Edith Nesbit's The Railway Children actually was. For the first time, an author wrote about children who weren't miniature adults, who weren't preternaturally perfect, but who were flesh-and-blood children, children who quarreled and worried and snapped at one another when they grew fatigued or anxious.

Nesbit also provides a somewhat realistic view into the Edwardian period: When their father gets sent to prison, only their mother's writing keeps Roberta (Bobbie), Peter and Phyllis from utter destitution. As young as they are, the children can no longer attend school, as their mother can't afford the school fees. show more Indeed, Bobbie has to serve as babysitter for her younger siblings. The only unrealistic bit is that they're able to keep a servant at all. Despite that, I thoroughly enjoyed this fairytale story of the falsely accused prisoner and of how a good deed for another falsely accused man creates a sort of karma that brings on the happy ending.

The story, while sweet, never becomes saccharine. Definitely worth a read, whether you're an adult or child. show less

Oh, lovely. Not at all the story I thought it was - somehow I'd gotten the impression they were living on their own, maybe in an old railway car. This is a very sweet (but not saccharine) story. The kids quarrel and mess up and make up and do great things on multiple levels - from making a birthday party for a friend to saving lives, several times. There are coincidences that drive the story a bit, but they work. There's also one magnificent description of a small landslide - walking trees. It's a lot of fun, and probably worth a reread in a while, too.

Nesbit is a charming author. While usually I'm not much of a fan of breaking the fourth wall, her asides are so friendly that you quickly feel like she's telling the story directly to you, without there being a book and over a hundred years between you. Having read two of her novels now, I'm surprised how old they are. Sure the settings and slang words are a bit archaic, but the humour, accessibility of the prose and portrayal of women is nothing like other books I've read from the same era. She was obviously an intelligent, progressive and witty woman and I'm glad she was putting such lovely stories out into the world. This particular story about three children and their mother who are mysteriously uprooted from their contented town show more life after their father vanishes and moved to the countryside to be poor, is a bit too convenient at times, too many coincidences, and the whole sequence with the injured boy Jim happens so near the end of the story, it feels rushed and a little out of place, and I can see that some people might find the children to be a bit too goody goody, but I found their foibles and quarrelling to be enough just to make it wholesome and not too sweet. Actually the book brought tears to my eyes on several occasions. Anyway, I am keen to read more of her work. show less