Initially written for Kingsley’s four-year-old son and published just three years after Darwin's ' On the Origin the Species', which shook Victorian Christian beliefs. Like Darwin, Kingsley took a keen interest in nature and science, some would even argue that this novel mirrors Darwin's theories on evolution, only in this case in the afterlife. Tom evolves due to education by his elders and experience. However, this is also a Christian parable that warns against the dangers of not being baptised in the Christian faith and the merits of treating others as you would want to be treated and the notion of eye for an eye. This was not for me. Yes, I understand the importance of the book at time, how it was a satire on Darwin’s classic and the fact that it predates Alice in Wonderland did impress me when I compared their publication dates. But it just got on my nerves after about chapter three and from then on right until the end where, confronted with the most ridiculous last line in the history of literature, my patience gave way entirely. There is a repeated declaration in Water Babies, first stated when poor soot-covered Tom wishes he could wash: “Those that wish to be clean, clean they will be; and those that wish to be foul, foul they will be. Remember.”

The overwhelming multiplicity of the natural world and the persistence of wonder is the dominant theme (as well as a very Anglican kind of moralism). The swirling, rapidly-changing surrealism of the underwater environment and the number of fantastic creatures would make a good subject for the animator Hayao Miyazaki. Alasdair Gray lists it as an influence on Lanark. The protagonist is Tom, a young chimney sweep, who falls into a river after encountering an upper-class girl named Ellie and being chased out of her house. There he appears to drown and is transformed into a "water-baby", [4] as he is told by a caddisfly — an insect that sheds its skin — and begins his moral education. The story is thematically concerned with Christian redemption, though Kingsley also uses the book to argue that England treats its poor badly, and to question child labour, among other themes.

MORAL.

I have seen Babies in water and Babies in bottles; the Baby in the water was not in a bottle and the Baby in the bottle was not in water. My friend who wrote the story of the Water Baby was a very kind man and very clever. Perhaps he thought I could see as much in the water as he did. – There are some people who see a great deal and some who see very little in the same things. La necesidad del autor de justificar que existen los niños del agua no me pareció del todo mal, pero la forma de proceder no me gustó nada. Su crítica estaba llena de comentarios despectivos y pedantes hacia los racionalistas o aquellos que se abisman en la fantasía sabiendo que son una ficción. Esta humilde pagana cristiana debe confesarle, señor Kingsley, que ve completamente lícito abismarse en una ficción conociendo su naturaleza irreal. ¿O es que acaso es menos valioso el objeto que nace de mi mente que el que es obra de la Naturaleza?

Tom, a chimney-sweep under the drunk, foul-tempered Mr. Grimes, one day goes with him to do a job at the local lord's manor. He by mistake enters the room of a young girl, who is startled by his soot-covered appearance, and raises a fuss. Everyone chases him, and he flees only to die ("changed by a fairy") and be transformed into a water-baby. He then has to become a real man again. Los niños del agua ( The Water Babies; 1863) de Charles Kingsley es una novela infanti-juvenil fantástica en la línea satírica y bizarra de las narraciones escatológicas de autores como Lewis Carroll y Edward Lear.

CHAPTER III

In fact, an adult might appreciate an annotated version of this book about Tom, the chimney sweep who dies and is turned into a water baby, given that the author does more than simply sprinkle into the story philosophical and scientific points and issues, including swirling debates such as that let loose in the late 1850's in Darwin's Origin of Species. Hale, Piers J. (November 2013). "Monkeys into men and men into monkeys: Chance and contingency in the evolution of man, mind, and morals in Charles Kingsley's Water Babies". Journal of the History of Biology. 46 (4): 551–597. doi: 10.1007/s10739-012-9345-5. PMID 23225100. S2CID 20627244.