The Railway Children

When their father is suddenly taken away one evening by two strange men, Roberta, Peter and Phyllis must leave their comfortable London home and move with their mother to a small cottage in the country beside a railway line, where she writes stories to earn money. The children wave every day to an old gentleman on the 9.15 train, make friends with Perks the porter, save a train from a landslide by waving red flannel petticoats, and slowly, Bobbie the eldest most of all, try to find out what has happened to their father.

E. Nesbit (1858–1924), an English writer and a founding member of the socialist Fabian Society, published the novel in 1906. It is one of the best-loved children's books in English, above all for its final scene on the station platform, and the 1970 film made it a classic again. From here, try her Five Children and It.