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.
I first reviewed The Story of the Treasure Seekers in August 2011. I definitely enjoyed it more the first time, perhaps, but it is still fun to revisit E. Nesbit. I really, really love some of her children's books.
Original review:
I just loved The Story of the Treasure Seekers. I loved the Bastables. There are six children: Dora, Oswald, Dicky, Noel and Alice, and H.O. (Horace Octavius). The children have a father, but no mother. But the father, for the most part, is absent from their day to day lives. This one has a simple plot. The children know that the family is in desperate need of money, and, well, they decide to look for treasure. Each child has an opportunity (or two) to come up with a plan for 'finding' treasure (getting money). Some of the plans are silly and over the top. (Like Noel's plan to marry a princess when he grew up.) But many of their plans lead to a FUN adventure!
I definitely enjoyed this one and would recommend it! It's a great adventure story with many satisfying moments. IF you've only read Nesbit's fantasy, you should give this one a try.
This novel ends with Christmas!
Quotes:
Oswald spoke first. 'I think we might stop people on Blackheath--with crape masks and horse-pistols--and say "Your money or your life! Resistance is useless, we are armed to the teeth"--like Dick Turpin and Claude Duval. It wouldn't matter about not having horses, because coaches have gone out too.'
I am afraid the last chapter was rather dull. It is always dull in books when people talk and talk, and don't do anything, but I was obliged to put it in, or else you wouldn't have understood all the rest...
The best part of books is when things are happening. That is the best part of real things too. This is why I shall not tell you in this story about all the days when nothing happened. You will not catch me saying, 'thus the sad days passed slowly by'--or 'the years rolled on their weary course'--or 'time went on'--because it is silly; of course time goes on--whether you say so or not. So I shall just tell you the nice, interesting parts--and in between you will understand that we had our meals and got up and went to bed, and dull things like that. It would be sickening to write all that down, though of course it happens.
I have often thought that if the people who write books for children knew a little more it would be better. I shall not tell you anything about us except what I should like to know about if I was reading the story and you were writing it. Albert's uncle says I ought to have put this in the preface, but I never read prefaces, and it is not much good writing things just for people to skip. I wonder other authors have never thought of this.
Albert is always very tidy. He wears frilly collars and velvet knickerbockers. I can't think how he can bear to.
THE PURRING CLASS (Instructive Article) If I ever keep a school everything shall be quite different. Nobody shall learn anything they don't want to. And sometimes instead of having masters and mistresses we will have cats, and we will dress up in cat skins and learn purring. 'Now, my dears,' the old cat will say, 'one, two, three all purr together,' and we shall purr like anything. She won't teach us to mew, but we shall know how without teaching. Children do know some things without being taught.--ALICE.
It is a mistake to think that cats are playful. I often try to get a cat to play with me, and she never seems to care about the game, no matter how little it hurts.--H. O.
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