Book 6 toppled – A children’s classic of adventure, growing up and the importance of family

The Railway Children by E Nesbit is a children’s classic. I read it when I was much younger and, of course, I have seen the very popular film. It’s not a book that I intended to read again until it turned up in my 2023 Book Advent Calendar (see what I thought here). I have found that rereading the books of my childhood can often be disappointing as an adult’s eye sees things that the child didn’t and the adult reader isn’t always prepared to accept things which the child did. Happily this was not the case with this book which I actually enjoyed more than I thought I would.

The story is set in the early 1900s where a mother and her three children relocate from the city to a smaller house in the country by a railway line. Father is away for a long time on “business” – the reader is aware long before the children of the story that he is actually in prison. In the absence of school and because the mother is writing stories for a living the children are free to explore and to make friendships in the local area and especially with the staff and passengers of the railway. Each chapter is a little adventure and the children grow and become better people as a result of their experiences.

What really brings this book to life is the narrative voice. The narrator speaks directly with the reader, they share insights with the reader that the characters don’t have, they reveal what the characters are thinking and they explain why the adults do what they do because they assume a child reader. The narrator is wise and funny and makes the reader feel that they know more than the characters which is a lovely thing for a child to experience when they read a book.

Problems with the book are mainly minor and because of its classism. The house is not exactly small, even though that’s how it is described – at one point they mislay a room altogether ! In comparison with many of the people they mix with they are not poor at all and they will always have a different status in the community than that of the railway workers, and especially the porter Mr Perks – they even speak differently. There’s also a bit of sexism about the different roles that the children assume but that is very much of its time and Roberta (Bobbie) is represented as a strong and intelligent character, although this is explained by describing her as a “tomboy”. These things are going to occur in a book written in 1905 and there are far fewer issues than there are in some other children’s literature of the same period.

I enjoyed this book a lot and definitely more than I had expected to. I thought that the characterisation was excellent and the narrative voice was a great companion through the story – the ending still brought a tear to my eye. If you are looking to read children’s classics then I suggest this one. I am passing my copy on to Oxfam and hope that it will find a child reader who will enjoy it as much as I did,