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Friday, April 22, 2016

The Railway Children (#atozchallenge)

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I finked out on writing my "R" post for yesterday, so it's a day late and a dollar short, as the saying goes. Sorry about that. My husband is traveling this week, and I had my Living Education Lessons class, and I just ran out of steam when it came time to finish it.

Have you read The Railway Children, by Edith Nesbit? It's a wonderful story. It's about three children: Roberta (Bobbie)," Peter, and Phyllis, who move to the country with their mother. They don't really understand why, but their mother tells them they have had bad news, their Father must go away fro a while, and they must "play at being poor" for a while. There is a railway (train) station near their house, and they have all sorts of adventures surrounding it. It's such a sweet story, the way the children come together to help their mother and each other, and eventually even their father.

I love Edith Nesbit's stories. The way she writes, it's almost as if she's on the adventure, inside the story, with you. I have read several of her books. My favorite is probably Five Children and It, and it sequels: The Phoenix and the Carpet, and The Story of the Amulet. These stories involve children and wishes, which go awry as only wishes can.

The House of Arden is recommended by Ambleside Online as a free read in Year 8. I enjoyed reading it as much as my girls did! The sort-of sequel (it's not exactly a sequel; the events don't all follow the events in The House of Arden) is Harding's Luck. Both of these books involve time travel!

I also enjoyed her Book of Dragons. I love dragon stories, and hers are different than most. We have a picture book of Deliverers of Their Country, one of the stories from The Book of Dragons, and my girls loved it when they were little.

We have a book called Melisande, which is a Rapunzel-like fairy tale, sort of. The illustrations by P.J. Lynch are beautiful. My girls loved this story, too, when they were small. I think I got it from Book Closeouts, which tells you I've had it for a while! Anyone else remember stalking Book Closeouts for deals on excellent books? It seems to be called Book Outlet now.

The Magic World is a book of short stories, which we also enjoyed. I have the audio version of this book as well.

I've particularly enjoyed listening to these books. When my girls were little, and we spent a lot of time in the car, I sought out audio books for us. Edith Nesbit's stories were some of our favorites. I've linked Audible.com versions in the widget below. They make great read-alouds, too.

It's hard for me to believe these books were written over 100 years ago, just like the Wizard of Oz books. They are well worth reading, particularly if you have children who enjoy fantasy. They're such good stories! I'm going to have to pull them out to read with my son. I think he's ready to enjoy them.


1 comment:

  1. No, I haven't read this! But it's going on my TBR list.
    JEN Garrett

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