Customer Reviews

7 Books in 1: The Railway Children, Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet, The Story of the Amulet, The Story of the Treasure-Seekers, The Would-Be-Goods, and The Enchanted Castle

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(3)

 

 

These are some of the most delightful books for children ever written. Better than Lewis. Better than Milne. Better than Ransome. Long out of copyright, even by today's standards. Gather up her best in one book. Wonderful idea. Oh! Yes this is a great bargain. Unless.

This is a paperback, not a hardback. And the type is very small. Very! But the two columns per page alleviates that somewhat. Only somewhat. But no illustrations. Just page after page of type; so, not as bad as a 1900 newspaper, but unappealing and unfriendly. I think the versions I read long ago had illustrations by Ernest Shepherd. Ohhhh, that is a loss....

Think about this. Two small-print columns per page, no illustrations, a floppy paperback printed on what appears to be cheap paper. This is not for a child to read.

I wish I had had a chance to see this in advance. Seek elsewhere for these treasures.

You get a set of E. Nesbit's seven most popular children's books, printed together in one volume. This is enough to keep you going for quite a long time, even if you're a very determined reader!

The stories are about groups of children, who have adventures when their parents go away (for different reasons). They're in a couple of sequences - 'The Railway Children' stands by itself, then there's three books about the same group of children ('Five Children and It', 'The Phoenix and The Carpet', and 'The Story of the Amulet'), then two about a different family (the Bastables: 'The Story of the Treasure-Seekers' and 'The Would-be-goods'), then 'The Enchanted Castle' is another one-off.

Some of these stories feature magic in a Harry Potter kind of way - that's the three 'Five Children' stories and 'The Enchanted Castle' - while the others are about the children's adventures within the normal Edwardian world - that's 'The Railway Children' and the Bastable stories.

E. Nesbit - the author - is strongly recommended by JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books. She's said in a number of press interviews that she really admires the writing of Nesbit, and models her own writing style on Nesbit's.

I'd recommend these books - they're very engaging and easy to read, and you really do want to keep turning the pages to find out what happens next! There's enough here to keep you going for a long time, too.

These books may be charming, but this edition 7-in-1 is awful - the print is so small that it is virtually unreadable. Very disappointing!

The seven most popular children's books by classic author Edith Nesbit. Great for adults to revisit - a good gift for any kid who loves to read.

I saw that people on here were moaning about the paperback, so I looked at book books in 'search inside the book' and got the hardback. Glad I did as the recipient really enjoyed it!

Great stories about some different groups of children and their adventures. I would recommend it as a Christmas or birthday present for any kid! I thought the size of the print was fine.

Love the stories, but there are far better productions of them elsewhere. Hardback or soft, this book was produced cheaply and looks much more like a text book than a book of stories for kids. As has already been described, tiny font, no illustrations, thin papers. I bought one for my family, and one for my 9 year old niece. I'll keep ours, as a reference book, just in case I can't find a better version of any of these stories in the future. But I can't give such an uninviting book to my niece. I'll find her proper versions of these books. I'd rather give her a nice used copy of an out of print production, than this book.

I bought this book as a Christmas present for my niece, and she loves it. They're great stories, and this book made a much better present than just buying one of them.

I can't understand what the reviewer below is talking about: if he wanted a hardcover, why did he buy the paperback? And with 7 books inside it, if the text wasn't fairly small then the whole thing would be really big and heavy!

So here's my recommendations:
- click on the book image and look 'inside-the-book' before you buy it, so you know what you're getting.
- if you want the hardcover edition, don't buy the paperback (duh!)

7 adventure stories as one book - good value. Exciting stories, good for older children.

Before viewing the movie Five Children and It, I had never heard of the author E. Nesbit. I was delighted to unearth her works from the early 20th century England. Ms. Nesbit has an engaging style and aside from the actual story, I learned a great deal about life during that time period. Better written than many current children's literature, I highly recommend these books.