Five Children on the Western Front

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The story is linked in with the war and shows how the young were the ones who sacrificed most of their lives, and although in the novel serious things happened, I missed and felt somewhat cheated at not reading about the character getting up to any mischief with their wishes. The sand fairy of their childhood has become a creature of stories and memory - until he suddenly reappears. We are made by friends and family and the knowledge that somewhere out there sleeps a Psammead, or that there's a wardrobe which leads to Narnia.

There are moments of both joy and horror that Saunders carries off with considerable aplomb, and one simple, heart-breaking image at the end of the story that pretty much makes the whole thing worthwhile. It felt so bald somehow; this juxtaposition of E Nesbit's glorious (and eternal) work against the awful bluntness of World War One. We've skipped ahead a decade and along with Cyril, Robert, Anthea, Jane and The Lamb (real name Hilary! To my joy, I found that not only was Saunders a Nesbit fan and praised the influence she has had on the literature of today (she mentions that the Narnia chronicles would never had happened were it not for her work) but I also found that her writing sounded exactly like Nesbit’s: and I mean exactly! Indeed I imagined early on when the children met a brief resistance in trying to tell their older siblings about the Psammead that it was going to be a case of the older ones not being able to see or believe in the sand fairy any more.I do meet kids from time to time that are on the lookout for historical fantasies, and this certainly fits the bill. Unlike me, Saunders calculated that all those Edwardian children whom Nesbit brought to life so vividly – with their knickerbockers and tweed, their altercations with housemaids and their endearing turns of phrase ("Do dry up, Cyril!

I finally read it the other day and I needn't have worried, Kate Saunders picks up the story and flawlessly drops it down 9 years later. If the narrator hadn't said he was a 'common' sort and therefore there was issues of class and separation between him and his love - I never would have guessed. Essentially, it wasn't so dull that I couldn't read it, but I must admit, it didn't capture my imagination. No flying (until at the very end, and only a very little bit is included) -it was all rather serious and dull. Cyril is off to fight, Anthea is at art college, Robert is a Cambridge scholar and Jane is at high school.It’s foolish to wish a 250 page children’s novel to be longer, but I believe just one additional chapter or two could have gone a long way towards making the sand fairy’s change of heart more realistic.