41 pages • 1 hour read
E. NesbitFive Children and It
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1996A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “A Siege and Bed”
Cyril discovers that if he puts his mouth above the dinner table, he can scoop up some food, and the others follow suit. After dinner, they look outside and see the besieging army polishing their weapons and preparing a battering ram. The children arm themselves with daggers and gather stones to drop on the enemies’ heads. Anthea thinks to ask Martha to put some biscuits in her pocket, as her hands are dirty, and gains another source of invisible food.
Robert sticks his tongue out at Jakin, a soldier he met earlier, and when the others praise his bravery, Cyril grows jealous. A soldier demands their surrender, and Robert refuses. Jakin gets inside by swimming through the moat and entering through a window, and Robert locks him in a room while he secures the window. Jakin manages to lower the drawbridge, and soldiers pour into the castle as the children drop stones and pour water on their heads from above.
The sun sets, and suddenly everything returns to normal. The children agree that the adventure was exciting, and Anthea is just congratulating them all for not quarreling with each other or anyone else when Martha appears. Furious because the water has landed on her new cap, she sends them off to bed without supper.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Bigger Than the Baker’s Boy”
Cyril announces that the children have had many adventures, but they are not any “forrader”—better off—than when they started. He suggests that they play one of their old games, Bandits. They dress up and arm themselves with bows and arrows and other pretend weapons.
When the baker’s boy comes along the road, the children pretend to accost the boy in the spirit of the game. The boy takes them seriously and gets into a fight with Robert, beating him badly. The boy is “ignorant of the first rules of fair play” and also pulls Robert’s hair and kicks him in the knee (141). Robert is deeply offended when Anthea rushes at the boy and, crying, begs him to stop hurting Robert. The boy only pushes Anthea away, chases Robert into the gravel pit, and disappears.
As Robert sobs with rage, he wishes that he were bigger than the baker’s boy. Digging his fingers in the sand, he touches the Psammead, and his wish is granted. Instantly, Robert is 10 or 11 feet tall and walks off in seven-foot strides to settle matters with the baker’s boy. Robert picks the boy up and settles him on a haystack while he tells him not to kick boys smaller than himself.
Jane decides that they should take Robert to the nearby fair and present him as a giant to earn money. Robert pulls the others in a cart to the fair, where Bill and Becca, a couple who are vendors, quickly agree to exhibit him. Robert stuns the fairgoers. He promises one man that he will come and work for him “[i]f [he’s] the same size then” (155). Cyril tells Bill that Robert must be left alone at sundown, when a change will come over him—as it does, returning him to normal size. Taking advantage of their similar clothing, first Cyril and then Robert walk out of the tent, one from the front and one from the back.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Grown Up”
Cyril runs to the gravel pit and digs up the Psammead, who asks him to choose something sensible. Cyril asks if the children can have their wishes when they think of them, instead of having to be in the Psammead’s presence. The fairy agrees. That morning, the Lamb is especially tiring, ruining both Cyril’s watch and the one of his father’s that he borrowed. Cyril angrily wishes that the baby would grow up, and the Lamb turns into an Edwardian dandy.
Grown-up Lamb calls them “kiddies,” insists that they call him “Hilary or St. Maur or Devereux” (167)—names that the author intersperses throughout the chapter—and repeatedly tells them to run along. The children puncture the tires of his bicycle so that he can’t escape.
They all have tea, paid for by the money that Robert earned at the fair, and Lamb mends his bicycle. When a pretty lady comes along, Anthea warns her to avoid the Lamb because he is their baby brother under a spell, and the woman quickly takes off. They return to the White House, where Martha, seeing nothing unusual, picks the Lamb up and carries him into the house just as the sun sets and the Lamb becomes a baby again. The children muse that since the Lamb will now grow up in the usual way, they will have plenty of time to make sure he never turns into the dandy they saw that day.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
Chapter 7 continues to develop the theme of The Importance of Responsibility When Using Power. The besieged castle is quite thrilling, but the hungry children can’t see the food that is put in front of them because it comes from the real world. Nor can they lift the heavy weapons in the castle to defend themselves. Just as sunset rescues them and they are congratulating themselves that, for once, they haven’t upset any grown-ups, Martha appears to fume about her ruined cap.
Chapters 8 and 9 both play with the idea of growing, and neither transformation—Robert’s sudden growth and the Lamb’s unexpected adulthood—does the children much good. As Robert remarks, the awful thing about the day was the baby’s “growing up so suddenly” (178). Nesbit is clearly saying that childhood shouldn’t be rushed, especially as the children think about how they will ensure that the Lamb grows up properly.
The motif of clichés appears again in both of these chapters. When Robert wishes that he were bigger than the baker’s boy, he certainly doesn’t wish to be 11 feet tall. When Cyril wishes that the Lamb would “grow up now” (163), he doesn’t want the baby to become a dandified young man. Nesbit again shows that imprecise thinking and speaking never gets the results one intends.
The story departs from traditional children’s literature in that the characters do not grow much emotionally from beginning to end. They are no farther along on the road to becoming adults at the end of the novel—no “forrarder,” as Cyril would say. Aside from the two two-chapter adventures, the chapters also do not build upon each other much. Instead, the author sustains suspense and drama by introducing new elements to the magic. She does this in Chapter 2 when the servants can no longer see the effects of the children’s magical wishes. In Chapter 9, the children no longer need to be in the presence of the Psammead to make their wishes.
This sets up an inevitable wish made out of thoughtlessness or emotion that is, like Robert’s in Chapter 3, at the Lamb’s expense. In Chapter 9, however, the children are never actually in danger. Instead, Nesbit plays the transformation comedically, especially after the Lamb languidly tells his siblings that his baptismal name is “Hilary or St. Maur or Devereux” and not “Lamb” (167). For the rest of the chapter, Nesbit plays with this idea, referring to him parenthetically with each of these names, as she does with “Lamb—whom I must remember to call St. Maur” (172). Not until he is transformed back into a baby does he become “Lamb (whose names shall now be buried in oblivion)” (176). Nesbit employs repetition here for comedic effect.
The very “daily” expectations and actions of the nursemaid, Martha, continue to contribute to the story’s drama and humor. The moment when she picks up the magically grown-up Lamb, telling him to “[c]ome to his own Martha then—a precious poppet” is one of the emotional climaxes in a chapter that is packed with humor (176).
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By E. Nesbit
