Children's Literature Overview "That going to the seaside was the very beginning of everything, - only 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." In Nesbit's 1913 novel, Wet Magic, the children of the Desmond family - Francis, Mavis, Bernard and Kathleen - are looking forward to a holiday by the sea. They get more of an adventure than they had planned on,...

Once upon a time, there were three bored but imaginative little children, Jerry, Jimmy, and Cathy, left all alone in a boarding school with one nosy maid and an agreeable French governess for the holidays. Having securely wrapped the governess around their collective little fingers, they secure her permission to go into the woods one afternoon. In the woods, they find a castle garden, and in the garden they find a sleeping princess dressed all in pink silk with a magic ring on her finger. The princess is really Mabel, the housekeeper's niece, who is only pretending to be royalty. But when she...

When four siblings journey to the seashore for a holiday, one of them unwittingly summons the sister ofa mermaid who is captured by a circus, and the children set out to save the imprisoned being. After a daring midnight rescue, the children's reward is an incredible journey beneath the waves and into the hidden kingdom of the mermaids. But they soon find themselves in a race against time as they struggle to prevent a war and save their new underwater companions Here is a triumphant tale by one of the finest storytellers to ever write for children, and a pioneer of fantasy literature for...