The Phoenix and the Carpet

E. Nesbit's The Phoenix and the Carpet is a funny old fantasy for 11 year olds that starts with a firework going off inside the nursery carpet.

What happens

Cyril, Anthea, Robert and Jane test their Bonfire Night fireworks indoors on a wet afternoon (please don't let yours get any ideas). Cyril loses his eyelashes and the carpet is ruined. So Mother buys a bargain replacement from a poky little shop.

A glowing yellow egg rolls out of it. On Bonfire Night it ends up in the fire, and out hatches a golden bird that talks. It's VERY pleased with itself.

This is the Phoenix. It's been waiting two thousand years to hatch, and it soon asks to see its own portrait (it isn't flattering, apparently). Then it mentions that the new carpet is a wishing carpet.

This is the second book about these four, set the winter after their summer with a sand-fairy. The carpet gives three wishes a day and goes anywhere you ask.

Their first trip is a smooth glide over the sea to France. Lovely! Then Jane, fed up with always being the youngest, wishes them onto the top of a tower. It turns out the tower hasn't got a top (or a door).

The wishes do work. They just don't work quite the way anyone planned.

The Phoenix is the star. It's grand and touchy and falls asleep at all the worst moments. Who wouldn't want a pet that calls the fireplace an altar?

The narrator is cheeky company too. While the children are stuck abroad, you hear about the mouse back home nibbling their jam tart. If you've got a youngest child in the house, they'll probably be on Jane's side the whole way.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

One chapter has aged really badly. The children take their cook to a tropical island where the people are called "savages" all the way through, and the children worry they might be cannibals. If that would upset your reader, it might be one to read together, or skip that chapter. If they're used to older stories, it's a good starting point for a chat about how attitudes have changed.

What to read next

If they haven't met these four before, Five Children and It is where it all starts. That's the summer they dig a very grumpy sand-fairy out of a gravel-pit, and his wishes cause them just as much trouble.