Five Children and It

“The White House seemed to them a sort of Fairy Palace set down in an Earthly Paradise. For London is like prison for children, especially if their relations are not rich.”

Nesbit establishes with these sentences both the children’s love of adventure and the fact that they are not considered upper class. In class-conscious Edwardian England, this would have been an important fact for the presumed middle-class audience, inviting young readers to readily identify with the characters. The children’s family does have a nursemaid and a cook, but servants were common among England’s middle class at the time.

“Grown-up people find it very difficult to believe really wonderful things, unless they have what they call proof.”

The author’s alliances are clear from the start of the story. She is not one of the silly grown-ups who thinks they know better than children and refuses to believe in magic. The book is populated with such grown-ups, and Nesbit repeatedly mines their disbelieving reactions to the children’s predicaments for humor. 

“It was not at all like any fairy you ever saw or heard of or read about.”

The Psammead doesn’t just look peculiar but also doesn’t act like a fairy in a fairytale would. While it has the power to grant wishes, it is vain, grumpy, reluctant to be disturbed, and it is appalled at the children’s lack of sense in making their wishes. It symbolizes tradition and common sense in the novel, although as a magical creature, it stands apart from the story’s adults—who, with a few exceptions, are portrayed as dim-witted and lacking in imagination.