The Railway Children

Since we came back from Mussoorie in June - I have found myself in a land where I have gone too little in the last decade.

The land of books.

There are just so many great ones to read.

Old classics. New voyages. The joy of cracking a book open and letting the text swim into my mind. The desire to keep going. The wonder at seeing the clock having spun around while I was in another place, another time...

I hope to share some of these journeys. So lets start with a delight. I had never heard of E. Nesbit. We were in a bookstore (one of those places which has sadly seen too few footfalls from us over the last decade) and I saw this book.

The cover hooked me. We bought it.

What a wise and wonderful tale it is. The three children and their world opened up. We laughed and smiled, shed the odd tear and lived along with the family as they grew together in the absence of their father. As the main reader I could not help but find my voice thickening a number of times - triggering memories of my own father reading to us as kids.

While the story has plenty of adventurous incidents to take you along - what Nesbit does so well is to build up the world of friendships that the children manage to create. Someone said that fiction allows us to see the truth that reality hides. This book rings true. The freshness of the children. The challenges that they and their mother cross. The child-level vision that Nesbit captures - while seeping the book with a deeper (and at times sadder) wisdom. The sprinkled incidences of Providence. The quiet commentary on class. The gentleness of love and devotion - and the dawning of understanding in a child. Its all there and more. Read it.

I wish I had read this a long time ago. But am glad that Asha and Enoch gave us an opportunity to go into this world together.

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Interestingly E. Nesbit and her husband were founders of the Fabian Society and involved in British Socialism at the turn of the century. Most of her books are available as free ebooks and audiobooks.

Here is a quote by Nesbit: “When I was a little child I used to pray fervently, tearfully, that when I should be grown up I might never forget what I thought and felt and suffered then.” (from an essay on Nesbit by Gore Vidal). We are glad that she didn't. It has made us the richer