A review by gwendle_vs_literature
Five Children and It by E. Nesbit

medium-paced

2.5

This is a very well-written children’s book, and I certainly understand why it was popular in its day.  The score that I gave it is as high as it is purely on the quality of the prose, and the fact that the narrator’s voice does such a good job of emulating a child’s way of thinking and of expressing things; but I would never give it to a child to read. 

The racism is atrocious — against Italians, against “g***sies” (by which it’s unclear whether Nesbit meant Roma, Irish Travellers, or another group of nomadic people), against First Nations peoples . . . and I’m sure there are others that I’m just not remembering.  Furthermore, there is an absolutely stunning example of how drastically language can change in a century:

In the final chapter the maid with whom we are most familiar refers to one of the other maids as a slut! She of course means it in its 1909 sense of “a woman of dirty, slovenly, or untidy habits or appearance”  but it was absolutely shocking and hilarious to read that in a children’s book.

I’ve had a copy since I was nine or ten, but I never read it until now, when I’m in the process of getting through all the books that I own and haven’t read.  I almost gave up part way through it, but I made it to the end so that I could give a thorough review.  I’m glad that I didn’t read it until I was an adult.