In these posts I hope to share a little about what I am reading with my two children. Not exactly a review but a look at a book we’ve read together and how it worked for us. For context, my daughters are currently 7- and 10-years old. They are both excellent independent readers but we choose to continue our family habit of reading a chapter together before bedtime.
This month’s book is another one that I hadn’t read before reading it aloud with Pearl and Rose. I’d heard of it, of course, and knew it was a classic, but knew nothing about the plot. In fact, I thought it was something more like The Boxcar Children (books I also haven’t read but seemed to always be popping up at libraries when I was a kid) and I thought the Railway Children maybe lived on a train or in some sort of converted railway car. (Spoiler: They do not. They simply live near a railway and like hanging out there a lot.) UK readers, please chime in because I think E. Nesbit’s works are more widely read across the pond than they are here.
Roberta, Peter, and Phyllis are three well-to-do children who live with their mother and father very happily until suddenly one evening, two men appear at their home and take their father away. This forces the children and their mother to have to move away to the country (near the railway) and live much more simply because they are suddenly poor. The children don’t know where their father went and are encouraged to not ask questions. (A friend who grew up in Scotland and had read the books years ago thought their father was away at war but the story is actually set several years before either world war.)
Their mother spends much of her time busily writing stories in order to support the family so the children are left largely on their own. (I forget if there was any mention of why they don’t go to school) They are said to be poor but they do have a local lady who comes to help take care of their house. The children spend a lot of time watching the trains go by, waving at the passengers, and befriending the station master and porter. They have various adventures and help others along the way. It’s all very heart-warming. Pretty low stakes and you feel sure it’s going to have a happy ending even as you don’t know what the deal with their father is.
Honestly, my main takeaway is how different parenting is. In my view, these are children who are definitely old enough to be given the respect of the truth. Their father is taken away in the night (a traumatic event) and they are not even allowed to talk about it. Forget therapy, their mother won’t even tell them what’s happening! Roberta, the oldest, is shown as being keenly sensitive to her mother’s emotions and while this is framed as a beautiful trait (and in a way it is and Bobbie is a great character), it also seemed to me that far too heavy a burden was being placed on this young girl’s shoulders.
That said, the helpful attitudes that the three children and their eagerness to take responsibility for problems they see around them is an admirable trait. In all of their adventures, they are brave even when they feel scared and they strive to help others. There’s a morality to these types of old stories that you don’t find quite as much in modern children’s books and I do appreciate that.
Karissa Reads Books 
Haven’t read the book, but have seen the ancient film many times – well worth it, if you can find it. My understanding is that the father was suspected of spying – part of the Communist spy rings of the post-war period, and that eventually he was cleared so could come home. That’s why no one talked about it – too dangerous. I don’t know if I picked that up from the film though I think so, but it is picked up in a book for adults called Exposure by Helen Dunmore, who uses the story in the original but shows us the adult point of view – the mother and father. It’s an excellent book – I suspect you’d enjoy it. Here’s a link to my review: Exposure by Helen Dunmore – FictionFan’s Book Reviews
My friend who had seen the movie said that too so I wonder if the movie leans more into that Communist-era. The book actually came out before WWI so his imprisonment isn’t war related.
I will definitely check out Exposure now! That’s a brilliant idea for a plot line!
Ah, I hadn’t realised the book was so early, although now you say that, I realise that the clothes in the film are much earlier in style than post-war, or even between the wars.
I loved this book when I was a child and read my copy until it fell apart! When I was a child I think I assumed the father had been kidnapped by someone, but when I reread it a few years ago I wondered if he was a communist because of the connection to the exiled Russian – although actually Wikipedia tells me it was published in 1905, so it was probably too early for that. Even as a child I was troubled by the amount that Mother relied on Bobbie, but I can still remember how much I loved “Phyllis, who meant very well” (so much so that I can still remember that description almost three decades after I first read it)!
The exiled Russian is clearly supposed to be a sort of parallel for the father but the timeline is a bit confusing. The book would make a lot more sense if it was set ten years later but it came out in 1905, as you say!
The kids are great and Phyllis is a great character. I’ve noticed in other books where parents seem to rely too heavily on their kids, even modern day stories. I think kids like to read about their peers being treated like little adults but reading it as an actual adult it’s easy to see it as problematic!
Being from the US, my schema tells me that the father was kidnapped by some kind of political group. I’m thinking of all the people who were Disappeared in South America, not that long ago during political regime changes and oppression and terrorism.
Ooh, that would make sense and add a lot of drama! The actual conclusion is really not that dramatic and kind of exists outside of any major war or politics.
Oh lordy, he has a second family.
Haha, no. It’s always presented as the father being innocent but trapped somehow. There’s no idea of his being guilty of anything bad, even though that would be the obvious answer from an adult perspective.
[…] Dunmore was on my radar but not my TBR until I read The Railway Children and FictionFan commented that there was a version of that story that focused on the parents. (Her […]