The book centers on a writer of children's books, her banker husband, and their complex circle of friends, neighbors, lovers, and family. In their country home, the family is immersed in a heady ferment of social experimentation. Fabian socialists, they are committed to social change; the book opens with the discovery of a ragged boy hiding in the museum. Recognizing his artistic talent, they take him in, and soon he is bringing order and profit to a local potter's studio, while fending off his daughter's sleepwalking advances.

All the elements that we think of as peculiar to the 1960s -- socialism, the "back to the land" movement, handicrafts, vegetarianism, blurring of class distinctions, and sexual experimentation, to name a few -- were part of British society in the late 19th century. Byatt's families in the book find, much as the children of the 1960s did, that their freedoms have limits, and that those limits are painful to crash into. Along with passionate love, new career opportunities, and exploration of both inner and outer worlds, there are illegitimate children, thwarted ambitions, casual cruelty, and unrequited love (both heterosexual and homosexual). The story culminates in the First World War, which extinguishes much of the optimism of the start of the twentieth century. The novel is filled with such a wealth of characters and detail that it's almost overwhelming, but it's still a compelling read. Like Possession, The Children's Book is both a window into another time and a mirror held up to our own.