The Water-Babies

The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby is a children's novel. 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 drowns and is transformed into a "water-baby", as he is told by a caddisfly--an insect that sheds its skin--and begins his moral education.