Saturday, November 03, 2012

3 Children and It

No, the title of my post is not a typo. I know the name of E. Nesbit's classic book is 5 Children and It. It's my favorite Nesbit, and one we read as a family about a year ago.

We've been revisiting Nesbit recently with a family read-aloud of The Treasure Seekers. We finished it last night. This was our introduction to the Bastables (I've been wanting to meet them for quite some time, especially since I realized they merit a brief mention from C.S. Lewis at the start of The Magician's Nephew) and we definitely enjoyed the introduction.

At the end of the book, there was a brief bit about the author, and I shared some of it with the sweet girl and her daddy -- how Edith Nesbit was born in 1858, how she wrote for a number of years before she discovered her great talent for writing for children (when she was about forty), the numbers of books she wrote after that, how it amused her when people assumed she was a man, etc. The synopsis mentioned 5 Children and It, which caused us to remember the story fondly.

Then the sweet girl said: "Ha! That's what Madeleine L'Engle could have called A Wrinkle in Time! 3 Children and IT!" and I just about died laughing.

Today's treat on the library hold shelf -- the new graphic novel version of Wrinkle. I was excited to pick it up, but S. has absconded with it already (she read the first chapter in the library). "When I'm done with it, I'll pass it on," she promised generously. She's been raiding my sock drawer recently for socks, so why am I surprised we're now vying for books on the hold shelf?

Life marches on!


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