I liked this book because this book tells about the cohesiveness of siblings, and the warmth of a family. Sometimes we think the family is not important because we are too busy with our own affairs, such as schools, tests, homework, problems in love, finances, and we even forget to make time to gather with family. Therefore, sometimes we need a problem befall us so we woke up and remembered in our family. Yes, sometimes, because of a problem, we become 'slapped' and become better.
This is a story of three children, Roberta, Phyllis, and Peter, who live in a respectable suburban villa with a wonderful mother and father and a cook and servants, until one day great disgrace and poverty befalls them. Father is taken away to prison (but they do not know this at first), and they have to move to a poor cottage in the country near a railway line. Mother writes stories to earn what little they live on and they get used to being poor and have to learn not to steal coal from the railway station, even if they have so little to keep warm by. Sometimes they argue and have crises, as one does, but in time they make many new friends, and amusing adventures aplenty happen near the railway and the canal. They develop the habit of waving to the train as it goes past and sometimes the people in the coaches wave back. Their friendly habits makes them one special friend in particular, who although he mostly just goes by in the train, eventually gets to know them, and helps them out in various ways. They have various adventures like stopping a train when a landslide covers the tracks, preventing a scraggly and penniless foreigner from arrest and taking him home, saving an infant and dog from a barge canal on fire, finding an injured older boy in the train tunnel and getting help. And somehow all the good things that they do add up together and end up coming back to them, and there is happy ending to it all.
This is a story of three children, Roberta, Phyllis, and Peter, who live in a respectable suburban villa with a wonderful mother and father and a cook and servants, until one day great disgrace and poverty befalls them. Father is taken away to prison (but they do not know this at first), and they have to move to a poor cottage in the country near a railway line. Mother writes stories to earn what little they live on and they get used to being poor and have to learn not to steal coal from the railway station, even if they have so little to keep warm by. Sometimes they argue and have crises, as one does, but in time they make many new friends, and amusing adventures aplenty happen near the railway and the canal. They develop the habit of waving to the train as it goes past and sometimes the people in the coaches wave back. Their friendly habits makes them one special friend in particular, who although he mostly just goes by in the train, eventually gets to know them, and helps them out in various ways. They have various adventures like stopping a train when a landslide covers the tracks, preventing a scraggly and penniless foreigner from arrest and taking him home, saving an infant and dog from a barge canal on fire, finding an injured older boy in the train tunnel and getting help. And somehow all the good things that they do add up together and end up coming back to them, and there is happy ending to it all.
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| Indonesian version |
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| England Version |
