Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Wouldbegoods
    The Wouldbegoods
    The Wouldbegoods
    Audiobook (abridged)3 hours

    The Wouldbegoods

    Written by Edith Nesbit

    Narrated by Teresa Gallagher

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The Wouldbegoods, a sequel to The Treasure Seekers, reacquaints us with the six Bastable children: Dora, Oswald, Dicky, Alice, Noël and H. O. Again, the story is told by you-may-not-know-who, and the children find all sorts of ways in which to amuse themselves in the country during the summer holidays. ‘Children are like jam,’ says the Indian uncle, ‘all very well in the proper place, but you can’t stand them all over the shop – eh, what?’ Well, the children do their best, but they do get themselves into trouble – right from the beginning, when their latest brainwave is to create a jungle in the garden…
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateOct 1, 2005
    ISBN9789629544232
    Author

    Edith Nesbit

    Edith Nesbit was an English Author who is most notably known for her Children's stories which she wrote underneath the name E. Nesbit. Some of her most famous children books include; The Book of Dragons, Doggy Tales, The Story of the Treasure Seekers and The Railway Children. As well as writing her own novels Edith Nesbit also collaborated with other authors on stories. This included her own daughter Rosamund E. Nesbit Bland, whom she wrote Cat Tales with.

    More audiobooks from Edith Nesbit

    Related to The Wouldbegoods

    Related audiobooks

    Children's Classics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      The GIRL WHO LISTENED with HER FEET

      Apr 1, 2020

      The GIRL WHO LISTENED with HER FEET
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A Southern Christmas

      Nov 1, 2023

      A Southern Christmas
      7 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      My First Pet

      Feb 2, 2020

      My First Pet
      9 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Last Love

      Dec 8, 2023

      Last Love
      13 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Clean SWEEP

      Aug 31, 2022

      Clean SWEEP
      9 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      In Dogs We Trust

      Jan 18, 2022

      In Dogs We Trust
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Little House

      Jun 5, 2023

      On Monday nights our mother made popcorn and served it to us in mugs with milk poured over. My younger sister and I carried our mugs into the family room and ate the popcorn with spoons, like cereal. We were five and seven. Until we were allowed to s

      21 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Mr Darcy MYSTERY

      Nov 23, 2022

      The Mr Darcy MYSTERY
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Guests

      Jun 15, 2019

      The month after our mother died, our father began bringing women home. It felt like a behind-her-back kind of operation. “I’m going to have a guest over tonight,” is what he would say. David and I stayed out in the living room, turned up cartoons, bu

      11 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      HELLO It’s Halloween

      Sep 18, 2018

      HELLO It’s Halloween
      10 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Till We Meet Again

      Aug 25, 2023

      Till We Meet Again
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Moving

      Oct 1, 2021

      Moving
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Deer-ly Loved

      Apr 4, 2024

      Deer-ly Loved
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      SERIAL PART 3 A new PAGE

      Mar 20, 2024

      SERIAL PART 3 A new PAGE
      9 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      This Back Is a Familiar Back

      May 1, 2023

      This Back Is a Familiar Back
      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Winter Wheat

      Sep 1, 2019

      Winter Wheat
      12 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Love A Duck!

      Apr 16, 2020

      Love A Duck!
      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      WINNERS APRIL 2023 STORY CONTEST Pet

      Sep 1, 2023

      Danah Jang, age 10Westlake, OH Finn, the Goat Picasso I had a tawny-colored goat named Finn. I raised him after finding him in the fields. He was in poor condition, calling out with miserable, piercing wails. The heart-melting scene convinced me to

      9 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      For The Love Of Elsie

      Jun 19, 2019

      Everything was as it always had been. The old armchair, the down-filled tapestry cushions, the Anglepoise lamp and magnifying glass (the one we used out in the sunshine to burn holes in old envelopes). A half finished crossword. A rickety card table

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Animal Magnet

      Oct 1, 2024

      Animal Magnet
      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      ‘A Children’s Bible’: Featured Fiction from Lydia Millet

      May 12, 2020

      "My phone had ceased to interest me since the news started repeating, bringing a wash of grimness whenever I looked. I solved the problem by ignoring it." The post ‘A Children’s Bible’: Featured Fiction from Lydia Millet appeared first on The Million

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      “Really?”

      Jun 2, 2022

      “Really?”
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Family Plot

      May 7, 2020

      The Family Plot
      10 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Animal Crackers

      Sep 9, 2020

      Animal Crackers
      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Animal Crackers

      Sep 9, 2020

      Animal Crackers
      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Mirror Mirror On The Wall

      Oct 5, 2023

      Mirror Mirror On The Wall
      10 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Dolly’s Star Turn

      Jul 12, 2023

      Dolly’s Star Turn
      7 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Kindness of Strangers

      Apr 27, 2020

      The Kindness of Strangers
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Wouldbegoods

    4/5

    95 ratings4 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      This is the sequel to Nesbit's Story of the Treasure Seekers, following the adventures of the six Bastable children. Trying to learn from the various scrapes they got into in the first novel, they form a society named in recognition of their desire to do good deeds and not be naughty. Needless to say, despite their determination, their efforts go wrong and through numerous silly and amusing misunderstandings they usually manage to annoy or inconvenience people, and in one case cause a serious flood that damages their home. The narrator is once again the elder boy Oswald who reports his and his siblings' and friends' doings in the third person. Being earnest, clever but inexperienced children they make intelligent mistakes - for example, an eight sided tower "Denny says it is the shape called octogenarian; because a man named Octagius invented it". Light hearted and amusing, though this is not one of my favourites of hers.
    • 4/5
      Continuing the series about the Bastable children is The Wouldbegoods, in which the children discover that having money again and living in their Indian Uncle's fancy house in town does not make them automatically desire to be good. I didn't find this nearly as much fun as The Treasure-Seekers. The latter carried on the often amusing conceit that the narrator was anonymous, although Oswald outed himself near the end, as if the reader hadn't already known after a couple of paragraphs. Still, he did come out and admit it – which makes it somewhat trying that the same conceit is carried on here. It's a bit funny to read (listen to) this almost immediately after The Railway Children. That set of kids was well-intentioned, good-hearted, and heroic; this lot is much more lawless and self-absorbed. The very name "Wouldbegoods" is a sign of it: they realize that they are prone to petty criminality as the sparks fly upward, and the two "prissy" girls, Dora and Daisy, propose to form a club to try to improve themselves. It doesn't go terribly well. I hate to say it, being as he (along with his creator) is a birthday-twin, but … I don't like Oswald Bastable in this. He was somewhat endearing in his pompous yet insecure self-praise in TTS, but here he and one or two of the others seem to have a bit more of a mean streak, or perhaps simply carelessness. Oswald will go far, though, with his attributes – or end up hanged. I think part of it was that I missed Albert's Uncle in The Wouldbegoods - hey! Where did his beloved go? And why did I only just think of that? Hm. Anyway. I loved Albert's Uncle in The Treasure Seekers, but while he was nominally the adult in charge here he was locked up in his room writing a great deal. Rather more than might have been wise given the amount of close supervision these children require. Without him, there is less of the second-hand, through-the-lens-of-Oswald's-POV adult reaction which made Treasure Seekers so priceless. I think that's a big part of why the constant string of incidents wore a bit thinner in The Wouldbegoods than in Treasure Seekers: it very soon becomes don't these kids ever learn? combined with Oswald at least must be old enough to know better by now. But they haven't, and he doesn't, and there goes the pig galloping down the road while the sheep vanish in the opposite direction. The one certainty in any given chapter is that there will be breakage. Wouldbegoods is still miles better than most of what's put out today, as far as I've seen; it's still great fun. So: not my favorite, but still – E. Nesbit. That counts for a great deal.
    • 4/5
      Edith Nesbit’s life was certainly unconventional by late Victorian and Edwardian standards, and it’s not surprising that her own childhood experiences and adult observations find themselves thinly fictionalised in her novels, particularly those written for children. Typical is her re-use of names of friends and acquaintances for the names of her characters in The Wouldbegoods. Of the six Bastable children, for example, Oswald and Noel take their names from her male friends and sometime lovers Oswald Barron and Noel Griffith, and Alice from her friend Alice Hoatson (not only Edith’s husband’s lover but also mother of two children whom Edith adopted). Of the two children who share the Bastables’ holiday in the country Daisy takes her name from Edith’s own childhood nickname, while Eliza, the long-suffering maid who appeared in The Treasure Seekers, appears to be a composite of the domestic servants in one of Edith’s residences in Lewisham, both of whom were named Elizabeth.I mention all this to show that the origins of the escapades and scrapes that the Bastable children get up to during their long summer holiday seem to be similarly drawn from life. Due to various misdemeanours the six siblings get ‘banished’ to Moat House in Kent (largely modelled on Well Hall in Eltham, where Edith and her extended family moved after Lewisham) and resolve to form a society, the Wouldbegoods, to counteract their unwitting misdeeds. Needless to say their actions largely result in near or complete disasters due to their apparent inability to consult about the appropriateness of their charitable deeds; this is compounded by their further inability to learn from their mistakes in what I feel is the only real flaw in this sequel to The Treasure Seekers. However, the tedium of successive episodes involving misunderstandings and disregard for property is more than balanced by Oswald who, as narrator, has that perfect boyish mix of ego and kind-heartedness expressed in entertaining bombast and endearing malapropisms.The author concentrates on six protagonists (as in The Treasure Seekers) but rings the changes by largely not involving the rather insipid Dora who, it may be remembered, appeared to be the eldest sibling in the earlier book but is here relegated to a stay-at-home. Her place amongst the activists is often taken by either Denny or Daisy, mousey characters who redeem themselves by the end. Otherwise, the established figures of Dicky, Alice, Noel and H. O. feature, all led by the dominating persona of Oswald as they build dams, go on pilgrimages, give drink to the thirsty or seek for lost relatives. Adults are by turns forbidding and distant figures or lend sympathetic ears when they are not representing stranger danger in an otherwise innocent world. The Wouldbegoods is a fascinating window into an England of a century and more ago, both familiar and yet strangely exotic but one where middle-class children (and us, vicariously) can live out their fantasies.
    • 5/5
      The children, now living in the Moat House with Albert's Uncle, think they ought to try to be good; at least the girls do. Their Random Acts of Kindness tend to misfire.Just as funny, if not more so, than the first in the trilogy.