The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
One of the things I like about wandering in second hand bookshops is that sometimes you get the things popping up that you know about but haven’t read and think “oh, maybe now, let’s give it a go.” Normally that works out well but every now and then it gives you The Water Babies so now I can’t ever go into a bookshop ever again.
(I kid, of course I shall go into bookshops again, but I shall hiss if I ever see anything by Charles Kingsley because my dude, my god, have a word with yourself).
So! The Water Babies is one of those books that pops up if you’re interested in the sort of children’s literature that I am interested in and I kind of had an idea what to expect of it. Morals. A bit more morals. Subtle as a brick morals. And when the morals were over, somebody might open a door in a gentle breeze and then die. (honestly, now that I have written that, I think I might have actually read this sometime? I bet I have). I also had a vague memory of having read this before or, at least, getting to the point where a certain thing happens.
This time, when I got to that point, let me tell you this: I knew why younger me had given up. The Water Babies is awful. I have not had a visceral reaction to a book like this for a bit. I kind of wanted just to shriek at it a bit, put it away, and then get it back out so I could shriek at it a little bit more.
I am a forgiving reader and I’ll put up with a lot. I’ll read a book that goes big and fails and appreciate it because it tries to go big and do something different. I’ll read period literature and try to recognise that for what it is and try to understand the moment that it’s in and recognise the impact that plays upon the text. The problem is that The Water Babies is not a forgiving text. It is convinced of its importance and of its worth and of the fact that it knows best and blargh, blargh, blargh, This is not for me, not at all.
(Terribly useful fodder for teaching though!).
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Daisy May Johnson 
I know EXACTLY what you mean. I quite liked the early chapters and the whole journey down to the sea, but once we got to Mrs Doasyouwouldbedone or whatever-her-name was I gave up. And, yes, hit us over the head with a brick goddy morals. (Give me some E. Nesbit any day).
Oh the subtle deftness of E Nesbit!! Light years ahead!!
I think it’s one of those books that probably worked in Victorian times but really doesn’t now! I read The Wide, Wide World last year – apparently it was a best seller at the time, but I nearly threw up over it. And I got some of the infamous Elsie books cheap, years ago, and read them … don’t even go there!
Some of them have NOT dated well at all, have they??
Heh – despite the blatant moralising (even more blatant than in George MacDonald’s kids books) I had a long obsession with this book, its literary influences, its idiosyncrasies, its not so obvious humour and its apparent enjoyment in nature.
Despite its superficially avuncular tone in my opinion it’s not really a kids book though, not helped by later sentimental or mawkish illustrations by the likes of William Bell Scott, Jessie Willcox Smith, and especially Mabel Lucie Atwell. I prefer the sober line drawings by William Heath Robinson and, in my Victorian edition, Edward Linley Sambourne.
I thought I’d posted a longish comment here but I must’ve forgotten to press ‘send’. Oh well. Here’s a review I did a while ago of the Oxford World’s Classics edition: https://wp.me/s2oNj1-wb
Apologies for the delay in approving these! I do think your point about the sentimental and mawkish illustrations is very right – there’s a lot of, how to say this, External Discourse About Precious Children thrown at The Water Babies and I don’t think much of it helps the book in the slightest…