Five Children on the Western Front

I’ve never read Five Children and It, E Nesbit’s 1902 children’s novel. So I didn’t realise that the five children in this (2014) story are the same characters as in the 1902 adventure. Not that I think it matters. Kate Saunders sets everything up in the opening chapter set in 1902, then vaults everyone forward to 1914 and begins her story proper.

And what an entrancing, moving, gripping story it is. There’s young adventure, and wishes granted, and family picnics and sunshine: the innocent spirit of the early 20^th century. But as the book progresses, a more threatening reality creeps in. The two oldest boys go off to fight in the trenches in France. The oldest daughter falls in love with a young, working class man she knows her parents will disapprove of. Ambitions to be a doctor are hindered by a mother who worries that taking up such a profession will ruin the daughter’s chances of getting married.

What knocks me out about this book is the way Kate Saunders manages to handle all these elements so deftly, mixing them into a single narrative that manages to read like a light-hearted Edwardian adventure, while at the same time encompassing women’s suffrage, the loosening of class restrictions and gruesome, sometimes deadly, battlefield injuries. It’s a fabulous piece of writing and I am in absolute awe of her talent.

It’s gone straight into my list of best books ever.