1. There are no "villains" among the characters in this book. How does Nesbit deal with evil, or does she simply omit it from the world of her story?

2. How are attitudes toward magic and actions under the influence of magic related to the character? Gerald's behavior while invisible, for example, is quite different from that of the maid Eliza, or of his sister, Kathleen.

3. How does Nesbit achieve credibility in her magic scenes? How does she make the various transformations seem convincing? The protagonists become invisible, or they are turned into statues.

What literary techniques make these scenes convincing to the reader?

4. Two of the most imaginative episodes in the book are the one involving the creation of the Ugly-Wuglies out of scraps and the one involving the animation of the statues in the garden.

In what ways are these...