Water Babies: Childrens Classics

by Charles Kingsley

Book Overview

Tom, a poor orphan, is employed by the villainous chimney-sweep, Grimes, to climb up inside flues to clear away the soot. While engaged in this dreadful task, he loses his way and emerges in the bedroom of Ellie, the young daughter of the house who mistakes him for a thief. He runs away, and, hot and bothered, he slips into a cooling stream, falls asleep, and becomes a Water Baby.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0517618176
• ISBN13: 9780517618172
• Release Date: December 1986
• Publisher: Random House Value Publishing
• Length: 12 Pages
• Weight: 1.84 lbs.
• Age Range: 5 to 11 years
• Grade Range: Kindergarten to Grade 6

Customer Reviews

Very disappointed!

This book is a huge disappointment! The lovely full-color cover illustration implied to me that I could expect the same level of illustration inside. Instead, there are very few illustrations and the ones that are there are blurry and black and white. There was no option to see the inside of the book. If there had been, I would not have gotten it. I had hoped to read this to little ones and let them enjoy the beautiful illustrations I remember so well from other editions. Can someone suggest an edition with those sweet, full-color illustrations???

A wonderful fairy tale

I enjoyed the story as a child and just recently finished reading it again and it still enchants me. I do suggest that the book be read to a child as a bed time story so it can enjoyed to its fullest over a period of time and when the child has a question the story teller can stop and discuss the child's questions and concerns.

The Water Babies

This book was a wonderful novel to read. It showed how little kids were treated durning this time period. Once the faries found Tom his life changed forever. The author explained how he started out as little boy and saying bad words to how he changed and in to a understanding boy. The book is a wonderful read because it shows what happens to others who don't know what it's like. Not all of this is true because it is a fairy tale. The author's one quote that stayed with me the most is "You're not supposed to belive all of this because it's a fairy tale even if you do believe. This is a powerful story and should be read to little children. It will show them that being bad is not the way to go. If kids learn tpo be nice when they are young then it can stop hatred and people being mean in future years.

British Fairy Tale: Ahead Of Its Time

The Water Babies is an excellent example of British Literature that should be promoted just as much as the works of Lewis Caroll or Dickens. Charles Kingsley's work was banned for quite a while. There is no question that this cleverly written fairy tale has a lot of hidden information to explore. Makes one wonder if one can still be an Anglican minister and promote evolution? Perhaps, one can. Mr. Kingsley has other wonderful works to explore and in addition, there is his niece, Mary Kingsley who wrote on Africa.

Do NOT buy this abridged version!

Kingsley's novel is brilliant--it's a fantastic and difficult read for both children and adults. But do NOT buy the abridged version (Puffin). One thing that is taken out is Kingsley's many sarcastic references to American democracy. The publishers have taken out the anti-American sentiment to sell more copies to Americans--this is, of course, a very American thing to do, and it's this sort of thing that led to Kingsley's satire in the first place. I would suggest that publishers stop mutilating books and start reading them. I certainly hope people will stop buying the abridged version.I note, by the way, that the anti-Irish sections are left untouched.Here are some passages--page numbers are to the excellent Oxford World's Classics version, ed. Brian Alderson (1995):"But he [Cousin Cramchild] was raised in a country where little boys are not expected to be respectful, because all of them are as good as the President." (85)"Being quite comfortable is a very good thing; but it does not make people good. Indeed, it sometimes makes them naughty, as it has made the people in America . . ." (115)" But they were true republicans, those hoodies, who do every one just what he likes, and make other people do so too; so that, for any freedom of speech, thought, or action, which is allowed among them, they might as well be American citizens of the new school." (141)"So she packs them [the sperm whales] away in a great pond by themselves at the South Pole, two hundred and sixty-three miles south-east of Mount Erebus, the great volcano in the ice; and there they butt each other with their ugly noses, day and night from year's end to year's end. And if they think that sport--why, so do their American cousins." (147)There are others.

It will finally be reprinted!

I read Kingsley's The Water Babies in 1976 when I received a very old copy of it as a gift. I have always loved babies and this book delighted me. It is both sad and wonderful. Read it as soon as it is released -- you won't be wasting time.