Five Children and It

• Cyril, known as Squirrel: the eldest sibling, who is brave, diplomatic, and book-smart (very intelligent)
• Anthea, known as Panther: the second eldest, who is kind, sensible, and good-hearted.
• Robert, known as Bobs: the middle child, he is a practical joker with a quick temper.
• Jane, known as Pussy: a generally agreeable little girl with a tendency to be oversensitive, she is sometimes weepy and easily frightened.
• Hilary, the baby, known as the Lamb (because his first word was "baa"). He is too young to walk and has to be carried everywhere.

The Psammead in frontispiece by H. R. Millar

The Psammead is described as having "eyes [that] were on long horns like a snail's eyes. It could move them in and out like telescopes; it had ears like a bat's ears, and its tubby body was shaped like a spider's and covered with thick soft fur; its legs and arms were furry too, and it had hands and feet like a monkey's" and whiskers like a rat's. When it grants wishes it stretches out its eyes, holds its breath and swells alarmingly.

The five children find the Psammead in a gravel pit, which used to be seashore. There were once many Psammeads, but the others died when they got wet and caught cold. It is the last of its kind. It is thousands of years old, and remembers pterodactyls and other ancient creatures. When the Psammeads were around they granted wishes that were then mostly for food. The wished-for objects turned into stone at sunset if they were not used that day, but this does not apply to the children's wishes because what they wish for is so much more fantastic than the wishes the Psammead granted in the past.[3]

The word "Psammead", pronounced "sammyadd" by the children in the story, appears to be a coinage by Nesbit from the Greek ψάμμος "sand" after the pattern of dryad, naiad and oread, implicitly signifying "sand-nymph". However, its hideous appearance is unlike traditional Greek nymphs, who generally resemble beautiful maidens.

The book's ending was clearly intended to leave readers in suspense:

"They did see it [the Psammead] again, of course, but not in this story. And it was not in a sand-pit either, but in a very, very, very different place. It was in a – But I must say no more."[4]

The children reappear in The Phoenix and the Carpet (1904) and The Story of the Amulet (1906). The Psammead is offstage in the first of these sequels (it is simply mentioned by the Phoenix, who visits it three times to ask for a helpful wish when the situation becomes difficult), but it plays a significant role in the second sequel after the children rescue it from a pet shop. An omnibus edition of the three books titled Five Children was published in 1930.[1] The trilogy is also known as the Psammead series.[2]

The Return of the Psammead (1992) by Helen Cresswell concerns another family of Edwardian children who discover the Psammead.[5]

Four Children and It (2012) by Jacqueline Wilson is a contemporary retelling of the story in which four children from a modern stepfamily encounter the Psammead.[6] One of the children has read the original book and wishes to meet Cyril, Anthea, Jane and Robert.

In Five Children on the Western Front (2014) by Kate Saunders, set nine years after the original story, the children encounter the horrors of the First World War.[7]

• In 1985–86 NHK broadcast a Japanese anime version, Onegai! Samia-don. 78 episodes were produced by animation studio TMS. No English dubbed version was ever produced, but it came out in other languages.
• There have been two adaptations on British TV of the novel, both by the BBC. In 1951 a basic two part production was dramatised by Dorothea Brooking. This was was only shown in the South of England and Midlands. A more lavish production was made in 1991 when the BBC turned the story into a six-part television series. It was released in the UK under the story's original title. In the USA it was released as The Sand Fairy. This was followed by The Return of the Psammead in 1993, with the Psammead the only character linking the two series. Both these series were scripted by Helen Cresswell, and Francis Wright puppeteered and voiced the Psammead. He was voiced here by the puppeteer Francis Wright.[8]
• In 2018, as The Psammy Show, an animated series co-produced by DQ Entertainment, Method Animation and Disney Germany.[9] This rendered the title character as a green dog-like creature.

• In 2004 a film version was released, starring Freddie Highmore, Tara FitzGerald, Jonathan Bailey, Zoë Wanamaker and Kenneth Branagh, with Eddie Izzard as the voice of the Psammead.

• A stage musical adaptation by Timothy Knapman (book) and Philip Godfrey (music/lyrics) was completed in 2016.[10]
• In 2022, it was adapted into another musical by playwright Rita Cheung Baird.

• It was also adapted as a comic strip by Henry Seabright.