Jacqueline Wilson has written a reimagined version of the classic story, The Railway Children.
The author’s new book, The Primrose Railway Children, will be published by Puffin in September, with illustrations by Rachael Dean.
Edith Nesbit’s The Railway Children was originally published in 1906. It tells the story of a mother and her three children who move to the countryside after their father disappears.
Wilson said: “I’ve always loved E Nesbit’s wonderful classic but I’ve also felt she wasn’t quite fair to the youngest child Phyllis. All she can say about her is that ‘she meant extremely well’. I’ve reimagined the story from the youngest child’s point of view.”
She continued: “The Nesbit book is very much a fairy story where every problem is wondrously overcome by heroic mother and an old gentleman friend. In my modern story, there are no easy solutions – but the children still have exciting adventures and I promise there’s a happy ending.”
The Primrose Railway Children will be published on 16 September.
In an interview with The Independent last year, Wilson discussed releasing her first book about a same-sex love story, Love Frankie.
“I haven’t written a teenage novel for a while,” she said. “I thought, this time around, why don’t I write about a girl falling in love with another girl? It’s not just a book for someone thinking they might be gay. It’s for anybody that experiences that extraordinary, exhilarating and terrifying feeling of falling in love and not knowing whether the person you’re so keen on returns your feelings.”
Additional reporting by PA
