The Railway Children

I have recently read a book entitled The “Railway Children” by Edith Nesbit, it was a book about three children who live with their mother and father. The story begins with them in a luxurious home, the oldest child is a girl named Reberta but everyone calls her Bobby, she is a caring and sensitive type of person and she always tries to make everyone happy. The next is a boy named Peter, he is an adventurous kind of boy and he is interested in trains. The third child is a girl named Phyllis, she is very young and often comes up with childish ideas but means well. The mother is a nice loving sort and is also strict when she needs to be, she is not a large part of the story because she is usually in her room writing. Not much is known about the father because he strangely vanishes at the very beginning of the story. Almost immediately after the father disappears, the mother and children prepare to move away to the country. This proves to be a stressful time for everyone and soon they arrive at their new house very tired and hungry. After organizing a little they have their dinner and go to bed. The next day the children begin to explore, they discover that there is a railway near their house, and as the story progresses the railway is where the children spend most of their time, having all sorts of adventures, one of which they save the train from a grave accident and another time they found someone in the tunnel with a broken leg. Once Reberta was trying to get some help from the engineer and she accidentally got aboard the train when it was leaving, and it drove off with her. The children also make many friends all around the area, they know a man at the station who is always referred to as the old gentleman and they make friends with a man named Perks who works at the station, and they also found a man who came from Russia and brought him home with them. Even with all the excitement the children do not forget about their father, especially Reberta, she often asks her mother things, at first she was afraid that he was dead, but later she finds that he is not dead but in prison, and her mother tries to comfort her and they agree to keep it a secret. As the book proceeds, the Russian man who was at the house becomes good friends with the children and learns a bit of English, and they find out that he came from Russia to find his family who were already in England. Then after the mother wrote some letters inquiring about the man’s family, they are located and the Russian man says goodbye. Once the children decided to play at the canal, they had not done this much because the people there were not very friendly, and when Peter tried to go fishing, one of the men who rode a boat on the canal came along and was very cross with Peter and after he had punished the boy he went up the bank and into the town, but then later that day, the children noticed a large amount of smoke rising from the boat and they rushed aboard to put it out. Upon doing so, they rescued a baby from the cabin and a dog, and after that they got Reberta to go and get the boat driver for help, and soon they arrived in time to put out the fire, which was not very big, and discovered that it was caused by the mans pipe, which smoldered and eventually lit the carpet on fire. The boatman was very grateful to the children and he rewarded them by giving them a ride the next day and making sure that the children were respected at the canal from then on.

The reason I enjoyed this story, was because every chapter had an adventure of its own, while other books that I have read do not have this unique quality. I think the author did a great job of the story, as the description was very good and the character development was also quite good. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in  good literature.