Edith Nesbit - The Story of the Amulet (BBC) GreatWizard

There were once four children who had the good fortune to find in the sandpit a strange creature. Its eyes were on long horns like snail's eyes, and it could move them in and out like telescopes. 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 old, old, old, and its birthday was almost at the very beginning of everything. But it still kept its fairylikeness, and part of this fairylikeness was its power to give people whatever they wished for. "You know fairies have always been able to do this. The four children found their wishes come true; but, somehow, they never could think of just the right things to wish for, and their wishes sometimes turned out very oddly indeed.

So when Cyril, Robert, Anthea and Jane rescue their old friend the Psammead from a pet shop in Camden Town, the grateful sand fairy leads them to half an amulet which has the power to take them back in time in search of the other half - and the complete amulet can give them their heart's desire! But magic can cause problems in real life, especially when the Queen of Babylon visits the children in London . . .

Dramatised by Malcolm McKee from Nesbit's 1906 novel.