E. Nesbit

Magia y misterio, un anillo que vuelve invisible a su portador y mucha imaginación para resolver los enredos. "Me encantan las historias de E. Nesbit. Ella es genial y me identifico con lo que escrib

lLecturas: FIVE CHILDREN AND IT BURLINGTON NIVEL BR 1º ESO Idioma: INGLES Edicion 2004

COLECCIÓN CUCAÑA AX.ALM.LECTURAS GENERAL

THERE were three of themJerry, Jimmy, and Kathleen. Of course, Jerrys name was Gerald, and not Jeremiah, whatever you may think; and Jimmys name was James; and Kathleen was never called by her name at all, but Cathy, or Catty, or Puss Cat, when her brothers were pleased with her, and Scratch Cat when they were not pleased. And they were at school in a little town in the West of Englandthe boys at one school, of course, and the girl at another, because the sensible habit of having boys and girls at the same school is not yet as common as I hope it will be some day. They used to see each other on Saturdays and Sundays at the house of a kind maiden lady; but it was one of those houses where it is impossible to play.

There were once four children who spent their summer holidays in a white house, happily situated between a sandpit and a chalkpit. One day they had the good fortune to find in the sandpit a strange creature. Its eyes were on long horns like snails eyes, and it could move them in and out like telescopes. It had ears like a bats ears, and its tubby body was shaped like a spiders and covered with thick soft furand it had hands and feet like a monkeys. It told the childrenwhose names were Cyril, Robert, Anthea, and Janethat it was a Psammead or sand-fairy. (Psammead is pronounced Sammy-ad.) It was old, old, old, and its birthday was almost at the very beginning of everything. And it had been buried in the sand for thousands of years. But it still kept its fairylikeness, and part of this fairylikeness was its power to give people whatever they wished for. You know fairies have always been able to do this. Cyril, Robert, Anthea, and Jane now found their wishes come true; but, somehow, they never could think of just the right things to wish for, and their wishes sometimes turned out very oddly indeed. In the end their unwise wishings landed them in what Robert called a very tight place indeed, and the Psammead consented to help them out of it in return for their promise never never to ask it to grant them any more wishes, and never to tell anyone about it, because it did not want to be bothered to give wishes to anyone ever any more.

It began with the day when it was almost the Fifth of November, and a doubt arose in some breastRoberts, I fancyas to the quality of the fireworks laid in for the Guy Fawkes celebration.They were jolly cheap, said whoever it was, and I think it was Robert, and suppose they didnt go off on the night? Those Prosser kids would have something to snigger about then.The ones I got are all right, Jane said; I know they are, because the man at the shop said they were worth thribble the moneyIm sure thribble isnt grammar, Anthea said.Of course it isnt, said Cyril; one word cant be grammar all by itself, so you neednt be so jolly clever.

THAT going to the seaside was the very beginning of everythingonly it seemed as though it were going to be a beginning without an end, like the roads on the Sussex downs which look like roads and then look like paths, and then turn into sheep tracks, and then are just grass and furze bushes and tottergrass and harebells and rabbits and chalk.

This is the story of the different ways we looked for treasure, and I think when you have read it you will see that we were not lazy about the looking.There are some things I must tell before I begin to tell about the treasure-seeking, because I have read books myself, and I know how beastly it is when a story begins, "Alas!" said Hildegarde with a deep sigh, "we must look our last on this ancestral home"and then some one else says somethingand you dont know for pages and pages where the home is, or who Hildegarde is, or anything about it. Our ancestral home is in the Lewisham Road. It is semi-detached and has a garden, not a large one. We are the Bastables. There are six of us besides Father. Our Mother is dead, and if you think we dont care because I dont tell you much about her you only show that you do not understand people at all.

Come forth! the worlds aflame with flags and flowers,The shout of bells fills full the shattered air,This is the crown of all your golden hours,More than all other hours august and fair;This did the years prepare,A triumph for our Lady and our Queen,More rich than any king in any land hath seen.

The writings of Shakespeare have been justly termed "the richest, the purest, the fairest, that genius uninspired ever penned."Shakespeare instructed by delighting. His plays alone (leaving mere science out of the question), contain more actual wisdom than the whole body of English learning. He is the teacher of all good-- pity, generosity, true courage, love. His bright wit is cut out "into little stars." His solid masses of knowledge are meted out in morsels and proverbs, and thus distributed, there is scarcely a corner of the English-speaking world today which he does not illuminate, or a cottage which he does not enrich. His bounty is like the sea, which, though often unacknowledged, is everywhere felt. As his friend, Ben Jonson, wrote of him, "He was not of an age but for all time." He ever kept the highroad of human life whereon all travel. He did not pick out by-paths of feeling and sentiment. In his creations we have no moral highwaymen, sentimental thieves, interesting villains, and amiable, elegant adventuresses--no delicate entanglements of situation, in which the grossest images are presented to the mind disguised under the superficial attraction of style and sentiment. He flattered no bad passion, disguised no vice in the garb of virtue, trifled with no just and generous principle. While causing us to laugh at folly, and shudder at crime, he still preserves our love for our fellow-beings, and our reverence for ourselves.

Philip Haldane and his sister lived in a little red-roofed house in a little red-roofed town. They had a little garden and a little balcony, and a little stable with a little pony in itand a little cart for the pony to draw; a little canary hung in a little cage in the little bow-window, and the neat little servant kept everything as bright and clean as a little new pin.Philip had no one but his sister, and she had no one but Philip. Their parents were dead, and Helen, who was twenty years older than Philip and was really his half-sister, was all the mother he had ever known. And he had never envied other boys their mothers, because Helen was so kind and clever and dear. She gave up almost all her time to him; she taught him all the lessons he learned; she played with him, inventing the most wonderful new games and adventures. So that every morning when Philip woke he knew that he was waking to a new day of joyous and interesting happenings. And this went on till Philip was ten years old, and he had no least shadow of a doubt that it would go on for ever. The beginning of the change came one day when he and Helen had gone for a picnic to the wood where the waterfall was, and as they were driving back behind the stout old pony, who was so good and quiet that Philip was allowed to drive it. They were coming up the last lane before the turning where their house was, and Helen said:To-morrow well weed the aster bed and have tea in the garden.

They were not railway children to begin with. I dont suppose they had ever thought about railways except as a means of getting to Maskelyne and Cooks, the Pantomime, Zoological Gardens, and Madame Tussauds. They were just ordinary suburban children, and they lived with their Father and Mother in an ordinary red-brick-fronted villa, with coloured glass in the front door, a tiled passage that was called a hall, a bathroom with hot and cold water, electric bells, French windows, and a good deal of white paint, and every modern convenience, as the house-agents say.There were three of them. Roberta was the eldest. Of course, Mothers never have favourites, but if their Mother HAD had a favourite, it might have been Roberta. Next came Peter, who wished to be an Engineer when he grew up; and the youngest was Phyllis, who meant extremely well.

MATILDAS ears were red and shiny. So were her cheeks. Her hands were red too. This was because Pridmore had washed her. It was not the usual washing, which makes you clean and comfortable, but the thorough good wash, which makes you burn and smart till you wish you could be like the poor little savages who do not know anything, and run about bare in the sun, and only go into the water when they are hot.

When five siblings - Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane and their baby brother, the Lamb - discover a sand-fairy in their gravel pit, they are jolly surprised and a little delighted. Even better, the Psammead is able to grant them wishes, although the magic wears off at the days end. Unfortunately, all of the wishes the children make go hilariously wrong and they soon learn that their foolish desires are more likely to get them into trouble than get them what they want!Five Children and It has been loved by children - and their parents - for over a hundred years. And Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane and Lamb will continue to be loved, with the appearance of Kate Saunders Five Children on the Western Front, an epic, heart-wrenching follow on from Five Children and It and the Psammead trilogy.

When Father goes away one evening, the lives of Roberta, Peter and Phyllis are shattered. They and their mother have to move from their comfortable London home to go and live in a simple country cottage. They soon come to love the railway near their cottage and all associated with it