Its eyes were on long horns like a snail's eyes……it had ears like a bat's ears. and its tubby body was shaped like a spider's and covered with thick, soft fur.., and it had hands and feet like a monkey's.'It' was the Psammead. the grumpy sand-fairy that could, ff in the mood. grant a wish a day. When the five children befriend him they find that each granted wish often has a sting in its tail. Golden guineas are too difficult to spend, wings let them down in a most inconvenient way, and when they wish for Red Indians. the children forget that they can sometimes be a little warlike.Generations of children have come to love the fantasy and the whimsy of the stories in the classic book from the author of The Railway Children.