Children · Family
The Railway Children
When their father is taken away, three children move to the country and make friends with a railway line.
Five levels, about 80 languages
- A2ElementaryShort sentences and everyday words.
- B1IntermediateYou follow clear stories about familiar things.
- B2Upper intermediateLonger sentences, richer vocabulary.
- C1AdvancedClose to the original, lightly condensed.
- C2ProficientThe complete novel.
One purchase is one book, in one language, at one level: $4.99. Another level of a book you own is $1.99. Editions nobody has asked for yet are written on request: chapter 1 in a few minutes, the rest while you read. How the levels work.
About the book
Three Chimneys
Roberta, Peter and Phyllis live a comfortable life in a London suburb until one evening two men come to see their father, and he goes away with them. Their mother won’t say why. The family moves to a small, cold house called Three Chimneys in the country, near a railway line, and the mother starts writing stories to pay the bills. Left to themselves, the children adopt the railway: they wave every morning to an old gentleman on the 9:15, make friends with Perks the porter and get into all kinds of adventures along the line. E. Nesbit published it in 1906, after a run as a magazine serial.
Why it works for learners
The book is a series of episodes, each with a problem the children solve: a landslide, a lost foreigner at the station, a birthday, a boy hurt in a tunnel. Every chapter is satisfying on its own, and the family at its center keeps the language warm and conversational. The vocabulary is everyday and practical: train, station, ticket, line, signal, tunnel, field, money, mother, birthday. Nesbit’s narrator talks to the reader directly, with jokes and asides, which keeps the tone light even when the story turns sad.
Which level to start at
A2 is a good start, and B1 is ideal. The children’s dialogue is natural and simple, and the episodes are short. B2 and above bring out Nesbit’s humor, and her very modern, unsentimental way of writing about children. Lexo books download to your device, so the railway children can come with you on a real train.
Read next
- Five Children and It, Nesbit’s comic book of wishes
- Little Women, another family holding together while a father is away
- The Secret Garden, children finding their own world outdoors