Editing Five Children and It

{{Short description|1902 children's novel}}
{{For|the film version|Five Children and It (film)}}
{{EngvarB|date=September 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2024}}
{{infobox book | <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels or Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books -->
| name          = Five Children and It...
| title_orig    =
| translator    =
| image         = File:Five Children and It (novel) 1st ed.jpg
| caption       = First edition
| author        = [[Edith Nesbit]]
| illustrator   = [[H. R. Millar]]
| country       = [[United Kingdom]]
| language      = [[English language|English]]
| series        = ''Five Children''<ref name=clute/> (a.k.a. ''Psammead'') series<ref name=ang/>
| genre         = [[Children's literature]]<br>[[Fantasy (genre)|Fantasy]]
| publisher     = [[T. Fisher Unwin]]
| release_date  = 1902
| media_type    = Print
| oclc = 4378896
| preceded_by   =
| followed_by   = [[The Phoenix and the Carpet]]
| wikisource    = Five Children and It
}}

'''''Five Children and It''''' is a [[fantasy]] [[children's novel]] by [[English people|English]] [[author]] [[E. Nesbit]]. It was originally published in 1902 in the ''[[Strand Magazine]]'' under the general title ''The Psammead, or the Gifts'', with a segment appearing each month from April to December. The stories were then expanded into a novel which was published the same year. It is the first volume of a trilogy that includes ''[[The Phoenix and the Carpet]]'' (1904) and ''[[The Story of the Amulet]]'' (1906). The book has never been out of print since its initial publication.

==Plot==
Like Nesbit's ''[[The Railway Children]]'', the story begins when a group of children move from [[London]] to the countryside of [[Kent]]. The five children (Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane, and their baby brother, Hilary, known as "the Lamb") are playing in a [[gravel pit]] when they uncover a rather grumpy, ugly, and occasionally malevolent Psammead, a sand-[[fairy]] with the ability to grant wishes. The Psammead persuades the children to take one wish each day to be shared among them, with the caveat that the wishes will turn to stone at sunset. This, apparently, used to be the rule in the [[Stone Age]], when all that children wished for was food, the bones of which then became [[fossils]]. The five children's first wish is to be "as beautiful as the day." The wish ends at sunset and its effects simply vanish, leading the Psammead to observe that some wishes are too fanciful to be changed to stone.

All the wishes go comically wrong. The children wish to be beautiful, but the servants do not recognise them and shut them out of the house. They wish to be rich, then find themselves with a gravel-pit full of gold [[guinea (British coin)#George III|spade guineas]] that no shop will accept as [[Great Recoinage of 1816|they are no longer in circulation]], so they cannot buy anything. A wish for wings seems to be going well, but at sunset the children find themselves stuck on top of a church [[bell tower]] with no way down, getting them into trouble with the [[gamekeeper]] who must take them home (though this wish has the happy side-effect of introducing the gamekeeper to the children's housemaid, who later marries him). Robert is bullied by the baker's boy, then wishes that he was bigger&nbsp;— whereupon he becomes eleven feet tall, and the other children show him at a travelling fair for coins. They also wish themselves into a castle, only to learn that it is being [[siege warfare|besieged]], while a wish to meet real [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Red Indians]] ends with the children nearly being [[scalping|scalped]].

The children's infant brother, the Lamb, is the victim of two wishes gone awry. In one, the children become annoyed with tending to their brother and wish that someone else would want him, leading to a situation where ''everyone'' wants the baby, and the children must fend off kidnappers and [[Romani people|Gypsies]]. Later, they wish that the baby would grow up faster, causing him to grow all at once into a selfish, smug young man who promptly leaves them all behind.

Finally, the children accidentally wish that they could give a wealthy woman's jewellery to their mother, causing all the jewellery to appear in their home. It seems that the gamekeeper, who is now their friend, will be blamed for the robbery, and the children must beg the Psammead for a complex series of wishes to set things right. It agrees, on the condition that they will never ask for any more wishes. Only Anthea, who has grown close to It, makes sure that the final wish is that they will meet It again. The Psammead assures them that this wish will be granted.

==Characters==
===The five children===
* Cyril, known as Squirrel: the eldest sibling, who is brave, diplomatic, and book-smart (very intelligent)
* Anthea, known as Panther: the second eldest, who is kind, sensible, and good-hearted.
* Robert, known as Bobs: the middle child, he is a practical joker with a quick temper.
* Jane, known as Pussy: a generally agreeable little girl with a tendency to be oversensitive, she is sometimes weepy and easily frightened.
* Hilary, the baby, known as the Lamb (because his first word was "baa"). He is too young to walk and has to be carried everywhere.
=== The Psammead ===

[[File:Five Children and It.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.1|The Psammead in frontispiece by [[H. R. Millar]] ]]

The Psammead is described as having "eyes [that] were on long horns like a snail's eyes. It could move them in and out like telescopes; it had ears like a bat's ears, and its tubby body was shaped like a spider's and covered with thick soft fur; its legs and arms were furry too, and it had hands and feet like a monkey's" and whiskers like a rat's. When it grants wishes it stretches out its eyes, holds its breath and swells alarmingly.

The five children find the Psammead in a [[gravel pit]], which used to be seashore. There were once many Psammeads, but the others died when they got wet and caught cold. It is the last of its kind. It is thousands of years old, and remembers [[pterodactyl]]s and other ancient creatures. When the Psammeads were around they granted wishes that were then mostly for food. The wished-for objects turned into stone at sunset if they were not used that day, but this does not apply to the children's wishes because what they wish for is so much more fantastic than the wishes the Psammead granted in the past.<ref>[http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/nesbit/fivechil.html ''Five Children and It'', Chapter 1]</ref> 

The word "Psammead", pronounced "sammyadd" by the children in the story, appears to be a coinage by Nesbit from the Greek ψάμμος "sand" after the pattern of [[dryad]], [[naiad]] and [[oread]], implicitly signifying "sand-nymph". However, its hideous appearance is unlike traditional Greek [[nymphs]], who generally resemble beautiful maidens.

==Sequels==
===By Nesbit===
The book's ending was clearly intended to leave readers in suspense:

<blockquote>
''"They did see it [the Psammead] again, of course, but not in this story. And it was not in a sand-pit either, but in a very, very, very different place. It was in a&nbsp;– But I must say no more."''<ref>Last paragraph of ''Five Children and It''</ref>
</blockquote>

The children reappear in ''[[The Phoenix and the Carpet]]'' (1904) and ''[[The Story of the Amulet]]'' (1906). The Psammead is offstage in the first of these sequels (it is simply mentioned by the Phoenix, who visits it three times to ask for a helpful wish when the situation becomes difficult), but it plays a significant role in the second sequel after the children rescue it from a pet shop. 
An omnibus edition of the three books titled ''Five Children'' was published in 1930.<ref name=clute>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/nesbit_e |title=Nesbit, E |last=Clute |first=John |author-link=John Clute |encyclopedia=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |date=15 October 2021 |editor1-last=Clute |editor1-first=John |editor2-last=Langford |editor2-first=David |editor2-link=David Langford |edition=4th}}</ref> The trilogy is also known as the ''Psammead'' series.<ref name=ang>{{cite book |last=Ang |first=Susan |chapter=Psammead series |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgeguideto0000unse_o6b3/page/581/mode/1up |chapter-url-access=registration |editor-last=Watson |editor-first=Victor |editor-link=Victor Watson (author) |title=The Cambridge Guide to Children's Books in English |year=2001 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-0-511-07410-3 |page=581}}</ref>
===By other authors===

''The Return of the Psammead'' (1992) by [[Helen Cresswell]] concerns another family of Edwardian children who encounter the Psammead.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/c/helen-cresswell/return-of-psammead.htm |title=The Return of the Psammead|work=fantasticfiction.co.uk |access-date=31 August 2015}}</ref>

''[[Four Children and It]]'' (2012) by [[Jacqueline Wilson]] is a contemporary retelling of the story in which four children from a modern [[stepfamily]] encounter the Psammead.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/w/jacqueline-wilson/four-children-and-it.htm |title=Four Children and It|work=fantasticfiction.co.uk |access-date=31 August 2015}}</ref> One of the children has read the original book and wishes to meet Cyril, Anthea, Jane and Robert.

In ''Five Children on the Western Front'' (2014) by [[Kate Saunders]], set nine years after the original story, the children encounter the horrors of the [[First World War]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/18/five-children-western-front-kate-saunders-review |first=Linda |last=Buckley-Archer |author-link=Linda Buckley-Archer |title=Five Children on the Western Front by Kate Saunders review – respectful homage packs a punch |website=[[The Guardian]] |date=18 October 2014 |access-date=14 May 2020}}</ref>

==Adaptations==
[[File:E. Nesbit Sculpture in Well Hall, Eltham (Psammead - 01).jpg|thumb|Sculpture of the Psammead in [[Well Hall]], [[Eltham]] in southeast London]]
===Television===
* In 1985–86 [[NHK]] broadcast a Japanese [[anime]] version, ''[[Onegai! Samia-don]]''. 78 episodes were produced by animation studio [[Tokyo Movie Shinsha|TMS]]. No English dubbed version was ever produced, but it came out in other languages.
* There have been two adaptations on British television of the novel, both by the [[BBC]]. In 1951 a basic two part production was dramatised by [[Dorothea Brooking]]. This was only shown in the South of England and Midlands. A more lavish production was made in 1991 when the [[BBC]] turned the story into a six-part television series. It was released in the UK under the [[Five Children and It (TV series)|story's original title]]. In the USA it was released as ''The Sand Fairy''. This was followed by ''[[The Return of the Psammead (1993 TV Series)|The Return of the Psammead]]'' in 1993, where the Psammead alone linked the two series. Both series were scripted by [[Helen Cresswell]], and [[Francis Wright (actor)|Francis Wright]] [[puppeteer|puppeteered]] and voiced the Psammead.<ref> Mark J. Docherty, Alistair D. McGown, ''The Hill and Beyond: Children's Television Drama – An Encyclopedia'' (Bloomsbury Academic, 2003), p. 102</ref>
* In 2018, as ''The Psammy Show'', an animated series co-produced by [[DQ Entertainment]], [[Method Animation]] and Disney Germany.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.animationmagazine.net/tv/dqes-psammy-show-heads-to-china-with-cctv-deal |title=DQE's 'Psammy Show' Heads to China with CCTV Deal |website=[[Animation Magazine]] |date=5 August 2019 |access-date=5 August 2019}}</ref> This envisioned the title character as a green dog-like creature.

===Film===
* In 2004 a [[Five Children and It (film)|film version]] was released, starring [[Freddie Highmore]], Tara FitzGerald, [[Jonathan Bailey]], [[Zoë Wanamaker]] and [[Kenneth Branagh]], with [[Eddie Izzard]] as the voice of the Psammead.

===Theatre===
*A stage musical adaptation by Timothy Knapman (book) and Philip Godfrey (music/lyrics) was completed in 2016.<ref>[http://www.philipgodfrey.co.uk/vocal-theatre.htm Philip Godfrey – Vocal & Theatre]</ref>
* In 2022, it was adapted into another musical by playwright Rita Cheung Baird.
===Comics===
* It was also adapted as a [[comic strip]] by [[Henry Seabright]].

==Works inspired by==
A [[Wizard (fantasy)|wizard]] named Psamathos Psamathide, described as a "Psamathist" (expert in sand) appears in [[J. R. R. Tolkien]]'s ''[[Roverandom]]''. The character, in an early draft, originally belonged to an order of "Psammeads".

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book |editor-last=Jones |editor-first=Raymond E. |year=2006 |title=E. Nesbit's Psammead Trilogy: A Children's Classic at 100 |url=https://archive.org/details/enesbitspsammead00raym |url-access=registration |publisher=Scarecrow Press |isbn=978-0-8108-5401-7}}

==External links==
{{wikisource|Five Children and It}}
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/e-nesbit/five-children-and-it}}
* {{gutenberg|no=778|name=Five Children and It}}
* {{librivox book | title=Five Children and It | author=Edith Nesbit}}
* [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245622/ The 1991 TV movie]
* [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0366450/ The 2004 film]
* [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/scd0001.20021028003fc.2 New York, 1905 edition (scanned page images from the Library of Congress)]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20091026235530/http://geocities.com/duendesamed/  The 1985–86 anime Onegai! Samia Don, '''Samed el duende mágico''']
* [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0128892/ The Return of the Psammead] 1993 sequel to [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245622/ Five Children and It]

{{E. Nesbit}}
{{Five Children and It}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Five Children And It}}
[[Category:1902 British novels]]
[[Category:1902 fantasy novels]]
[[Category:1902 children's books]]
[[Category:British fantasy novels]]
[[Category:British children's novels]]
[[Category:Children's fantasy novels]]
[[Category:Low fantasy novels]]
[[Category:English novels]]
[[Category:Novels set in Kent]]
[[Category:Novels set in the 1900s]]
[[Category:Children's books set in Kent]]
[[Category:Children's books set in the 1900s]]
[[Category:Novels about fairies]]
[[Category:Children's books about fairies]]
[[Category:Works about children]]
[[Category:Novels first published in serial form]]
[[Category:Works originally published in The Strand Magazine]]
[[Category:British novels adapted into films]]
[[Category:Fantasy novels adapted into films]]
[[Category:Children's books adapted into films]]
[[Category:British novels adapted into television shows]]
[[Category:Children's books adapted into television shows]]
[[Category:British novels adapted into plays]]
[[Category:Novels adapted into comics]]
[[Category:British children's fantasy television series]]
[[Category:British television shows based on children's books]]
[[Category:British television shows featuring puppetry]]
[[Category:Period television series]]
[[Category:Five Children and It| ]]
[[Category:Books illustrated by H. R. Millar]]
[[Category:Novels by E. Nesbit]]