We look at the world once, in childhood.

Bobbie, Peter and Phyllis are the three protagonists of The Railway Children (1906) by E. Nesbit, and all is normal and well in their little London house until their father is falsely accused of being a spy. With their father 'away', the three children are uprooted and transported to the countryside. Suddenly they find themselves poor. They can't have both butter and jam but butter or jam. No matter. They have trains to watch, friends to make, and lots saving the day to get done.

Throughout the book I was constantly picking up signs of how this would make the perfect Christmas special. Country house and scenic landscape, check. A stoic elderly gentleman with money, check. A benevolent and beautiful mother, check. Poor people, check. Charity on a special occasion, check. Speech about selflessness, double checks.

Even so, it wasn't cringe-y to get through the story, all because Nesbit has managed to capture that fleeting yet ineffable something that you only find in childhood. It was a time when apologising to someone made you feel like the hero of a tragedy, and when you received unexpected kindness, the world immediately looked more beautiful. It was a time, and I chuckle as I write this, when you could be mean and vicious and yet utterly unrepentant. Or really, only slightly repentant afterwards.

As I try to depict E. Nesbit's world of childhood, I am reminded of the concluding lines of Louise Glück's poem 'Nostos':

We look at the world once, in childhood.
The rest is memory. 

I wonder if this is the magic of The Railway Children, that it makes me nostalgic for a childhood that is not my own. For who would believe me if I were to say that I miss watching smoking steam trains go by in the english countryside? 'Tis strange, but 'tis true. So if you're going to read this book, be prepared to become a train fanatic, otherwise, save yourself!