Customer Reviews
Not as good as the puffin audio - pity... - By: thegoodbook, 05 Mar 2008 
Yes, a great story, but to manage your expectations, this is not a patch on the Puffin tapes of the book read by Samantha Bond. This abridgement lacks colour compared with the Puffin one - you jump to the Psammead after about 3 minutes, & a lot of the Edwardian charm has been dropped. Anna Bentinck is just not as good either. But as this is the only audio available, I suppose you'll have to get it!
Wonderful - both my children love this CD version - By: C. Booth, 10 May 2005 
My six year old daughter says "It is the most best CD ever!" My 8 year old son says "It's better than watching the film, my heart broke at the end! I'm going to listen to it over & over again"
Need I say more, the children love it!
best recording yet - ignore the cover - By: A. Craig, 04 May 2004 What a pity this recording comes with such a wishy-washy illustration, guaranteed to put children off. It is pure joy, not least because it will keep any child of 8+ completely quiet for 3 hours. Nesbitt's classic tale is being filmed, & perhaps this will encourage more children ot try her wonderful stories, toldin the voice of the kindest mother imaginable.
Five children- one of the a baby, known as the Lamb (whose delightful & frightful characteristics are honestly portrayed) leave London for their first holidayin two years at the white housein the country. It isn't long before they discover a "Psammead"in the gravel-pits, a sand-fairy who has not surfaced since dinosaur days (Nesbitt's paleontology a bit shaky here) when children used to ask it for a nice Megatherium for breakfast. Our own children of course ask for all the obvious things - beauty, riches, wings, adventures. They all go hilariously wrong, & if the long-suffering maid Ellen gets a husband out of it, it's only by accident.
There are no tedious moral messages, except perhaps that it isn't wise to try & tell adults the truth, & that you should always have your dinner before you have an adventure, but the freshness of this enchanting book is undimmed. The reading is first-rate, & interspersed with perfectly chosen music from Naxos's archives. Much, much better than the BBC recording. I also recommend the Cover to Cover audiop version of The Phoenix & the Carpet. Let's hope the third bookin the trilogy, The Sotry of the Amulet, isn't longin appearing.
