Five Children And It

English author E. Nesbit wrote the children’s book Five Children and It. The story revolves around the Psammead, or the Gifts was the general title of the segment that ran every month from April to December 1902 in the Strand Magazine. A novel based on the stories was later developed and released that same year. Including The Phoenix and the Carpet (1904) and The Story of the Amulet, it is the first book in a trilogy (1906). Since its initial release, the book has never been out of print. The novel opens with a group of kids moving from London to the Kent countryside, much like Nesbit’s The Railway Children. The Psammead, a sand fairy with the power to grant wishes, is discovered by the five children Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane, and their infant brother, the Lamb, while they are playing in a gravel pit. The jewelry finally appears in their home when the kids unintentionally wish they could offer their mother some expensive jewelry. The children must beseech the Psammead for a complicated series of wishes in order to make things right because it appears that the gamekeeper, who is now their buddy, will be held responsible for the robbery.