Five Children on the Western Front
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4.8 • 6 Ratings
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- £4.49
Publisher Description
An epic, heart-wrenching follow-on from E. Nesbit's Five Children and It stories.
The five children have grown up and World War I has begun in earnest.
Cyril is off to fight, Anthea is at art college, Robert is a Cambridge scholar and Jane is at high school. The Lamb is the grown up age of 11, and he has a little sister, Edith, in tow.
The sand fairy has become a creature of stories ... until, for the first time in 10 years, he suddenly reappears.
The siblings are pleased to have something to take their minds off the war, but this time the Psammead is here for a reason, and his magic might have a more serious purpose.
Before this last adventure ends, all will be changed, and the two younger children will have seen the Great War from every possible viewpoint - factory-workers, soldiers and sailors, nurses and ambulance drivers, and the people left at home, and the war's impact will be felt right at the heart of their family.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Published in 2014 (the centennial of the start of WWI) in England, where it won the Costa Children's Book Award, Saunders's moving homage to E. Nesbit's Five Children and It is an irresistible read for a wide range of readers. In a daring move, Saunders delivers a sequel to the classic fantasy, taking up the characters in 1914 (except for a few instances of time travel), adding a new sibling, and not just reviving the Psammead, but providing a backstory for the "senior sand fairy" that has its own suspenseful movement. Comfortably blending fantasy elements with an English period piece about a close family, Saunders (The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop) doesn't shy from the tragedies of WWI, but handles them with a tender sadness, eschewing any hints of sentimentality or melodrama. While readers might be slightly incredulous at the outcome of one horrific event, Saunders casts it in realistic detail. A satisfying epilogue closes the book with the mix of notes that arise from its pages: family, magic, sorrow, and joie de vivre. Ages 10 up.
