Five Children and It is a children's novel by the English author E. Nesbit. It was first published as a book in 1902, having been expanded from a series of stories published in the Strand Magazine in 1900 under the general title The Psammead, or the Gifts. It is the first volume of a trilogy that includes The Phoenix and the Carpet and The Story of the Amulet. The story begins when a group of children move from London to the countryside of Kent. While playing in a gravel pit the five children—Robert, Anthea, Cyril, Jane and their baby brother, known as the Lamb – uncover a rather grumpy, ugly and occasionally malevolent Psammead or sand-fairy, who has the ability to grant wishes. He persuades the children to take one wish each day to be shared among them, with the caveat that the wishes will turn to stone at sunset. This, apparently, used to be the rule in the Stone Age, when all children wished for was food, the bones of which then became fossils. However, when the five children's first wish, to be "as beautiful as the day", ends at sunset, its effects simply vanish, leading the Psammead to observe that some wishes are too fanciful to be changed to stone.

Edith Nesbit (15 August 1858—4 May 1924) was an English author and poet; she published her books for children under the name of E. Nesbit. She wrote or collaborated on over 61 books of fiction for children. She was also a political activist and co-founded the Fabian Society, a socialist organisation later affiliated to the Labour Party. She created an innovative body of work that combined realistic, contemporary children in real-world settings with magical objects – what would now be classed as contemporary fantasy – and adventures and sometimes travel to fantastic worlds. Nesbit also wrote for adults, including eleven novels, short stories and four collections of horror stories.