Five children and it book

Five Children and It - E. Nesbit - - Allen & Unwin - Australia

Five Children and It is a children's novel by English author E. It was originally published in in the Strand Magazine under the general title The Psammead, or the Gifts , with a segment appearing each month from April to December. The stories were then expanded into a novel which was published the same year. The book has never been out of print since its initial publication. Like Nesbit's The Railway Children , the story begins when a group of children move from London to the countryside of Kent. The Psammead persuades the children to take one wish each day to be shared among them, with the caveat that the wishes will turn to stone at sunset. This, apparently, used to be the rule in the Stone Age , when all that children wished for was food, the bones of which then became fossils.