Although it occupied a familiar place in British children's literary history, a modern day reader might find parts of the book surprising fare for children -- then or now. It's even horrific at times. A poor, exhausted Tom is led to a stream and transformed into a water-baby by the fairies, feverish and feeling he needs to wash himself to be clean. Mr Grimes is rescued from a fate in his afterlife, but the solution is just as bad if not worse. The fairies drive one kindhearted professor who didn't believe in him near insane. There's a very distasteful undercurrent even beyond the overt things. For good fairies, they do an awful lot of bad things. A thought: I've never read Alice in Wonderland, but when I think of the children's movie I recall it being a string of one fantastical event after another. Would I have the same reaction reading that? Or are the worlds and characters created therein enough to carry a haphazard plot? There is a repeated declaration in Water Babies, first stated when poor soot-covered Tom wishes he could wash: “Those that wish to be clean, clean they will be; and those that wish to be foul, foul they will be. Remember.”

Coles, Richard (11 July 2016). "Reverend Richard Coles on The Water Babies: how a vicar saved a chimney sweep". The Guardian.

First published in 1862 Reverend Charles Kingsley’s classic novel about a young chimney sweep who after falling into a river finds himself transformed in to an aquatic creature, a 'Water Baby'. The tale begins relatively realistically, and when Tom plunges into the water in becomes a mix of social and scientific satire. a b c d e Sandner, David (2004). Fantastic Literature: A Critical Reader. Greenwood Publishing Group. p.328. ISBN 0-275-98053-7. Al tono fantástico le pongo un diez, del crítico diría que es mejorable y del pedante, que lo considero casi un subtono del segundo, diría que es horrible. Para empezar, Tom realiza todo un viaje personal hacia la máxima virtud, es decir, convertirse en un niño bueno cristiano que antepone los buenos deseos ajenos a los deseos personales. Ese viaje está lleno de magia, imaginación y elementos dispares que unidos crean una historia perfecta a la que le hubiera puesto cinco estrellas de cabeza. Sin embargo, como la historia está repleta de comentarios críticos, más dirigidos a un público adulto que al infantil, la fantasía es interrumpida en decenas de ocasiones y, finalmente, opacada por temas mundanos y muy concretos de la época. Que si un tal Samuel Griswold ( Primo Cramchild) dijo que la magia no existe en una ponencia, que si la gente sigue la moda y por eso se ponen esos horribles spoon-bonnets, que si Jane Marcet ( Tía Agigate) dijo no se qué…Se centra en hechos muy específicos de la era victoriana que desde la mirada actual solo nos provocan indiferencia pues, aunque podemos entender el modo de proceder de los citados y del propio Kingsley, el comentario concreto y la crítica nos es indiferente.

It also has a very dismissive attitude towards Americans, Jews and (particularly) the Irish (although seems keen on the Scots) which makes for some unpleasant reading. In 2014 it was adapted into a musical; [16] a shortened version premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2014, [17] with the full version being produced at the Playhouse Theatre, Cheltenham in 2015 by performing arts students of the University of Gloucestershire. It was performed, again by students, in the same venue in June2019. [18]Kingsley, Charles (7 September 1998). The Water Babies (audio cassette). BBC Radio Collection. BBC Audiobooks. ISBN 978-0-563-55810-1. A BBC Radio4 full cast dramatisation. In a wealthy estate in the North Country of England, an abusive chimney sweeper, Mr. Grimes, sends his mischievous apprentice, Tom, into a chimney. The boy becomes lost in a labyrinth of interconnected tunnels and eventually exits through the fireplace in a little girl’s bedroom, where he sees (for the first time in his life) pictures of Jesus Christ. The girl, Ellie, wakes up suddenly and screams, prompting Tom to flee through a window. He makes his way to a neighboring town, to the house of the local schoolteacher, who gives him food and a place to sleep. That night, Tom sleepwalks to a stream and in effect drowns himself. In a symbolic baptism, he washes out of his soot-covered body and becomes a water-baby among the fairies. The most wonderful and the strongest things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see."

folks have a great liking for those poor little efts. They never did anybody any harm, or could if they The book ends with the caveat that it is only a fairy tale, and the reader is to believe none of it, "even if it is true". The overwhelming multiplicity of the natural world and the persistence of wonder is the dominant theme (as well as a very Anglican kind of moralism). The swirling, rapidly-changing surrealism of the underwater environment and the number of fantastic creatures would make a good subject for the animator Hayao Miyazaki. Alasdair Gray lists it as an influence on Lanark.The most wonderful and the strongest of things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see.' That’s a great shame for people like Mother Theresa whose entire life’s work count for nothing because they actually love people and want to help them. Bummer. Yep, next time I actually want to inconvenience myself for the sake of others, I’ll think twice before doing so and wait until I really, really, deep, deep down in my heart don’t want to at all. Then it will count. The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby is a children's novel by Charles Kingsley. [2] Written in 1862–1863 as a serial for Macmillan's Magazine, it was first published in its entirety in 1863. It was written as part satire in support of Charles Darwin's On The Origin of Species. The book was extremely popular in the United Kingdom and was a mainstay of British children's literature for many decades, but eventually fell out of favour in America in part due to its prejudices against Irish, Jews, Catholics, and Americans. [3] Story [ edit ] Of course, he achieves his aim, but this is by means of passing some kind of moral litmus test of doing something right even though it’s not something he wants to do. The implication is that our highest moral deeds are those which are done in the face of extreme distaste.