Damaris the duck lives up to her eponymous epithet in this barnyard adventure, which features, in addition to this resourceful fowl, her canine friend and the farm's supercilious swine. Read full book review >
The Robinson family and their neighbor, Mr. Brown, all mice, live under the kitchen floor under the constant threat of the house cat. Read full book review >
Two bachelor giants set out in search of wives in this droll and handsomely presented offering. Read full book review >
Another short, cozy animal (to use the term loosely) tale from the master of same. Read full book review >
Replacing his usual stock of farm animals with an older, more primitive cast, King-Smith pits families of Pterodactyls and Apatosaurs against a predatory T. rex. Read full book review >
Another amiable animal ramble from King-Smith—this one featuring a lonely Bactrian camel who breaks out of a Somerset zoo to look for a pal. Read full book review >
To the few cat stories in King-Smith's stable, this latest poses a new dimension and meaning to the term "nine lives." Read full book review >
A failing farmer's fortune changes when Joy, literally, comes into his life. Read full book review >
A bold, young cat uses up his fund of lives at a great rate in this appealingly presented animal tale. Read full book review >
Princess Penelope and her pig Lollipop are learning to read. Read full book review >
King-Smith's (Chewing the Cud, p. 1312, etc.) animal tales usually leap over the Atlantic with ease, but not this time. Read full book review >
A memoir from a beloved chronicler of the barnyard reveals a vast experience with his subject matter, and a huge capacity for self-deprecation. Read full book review >
The author of Babe, the Gallant Pig (1985) offers another winner with this tale of a bright pig and her canny young keeper "training" a spoiled princess. Read full book review >
King-Smith's (The Roundhill, 2000, etc.) reliable fantasies usually focus on an animal with a special talent: a green mouse, an alien rabbit, and of course, that famously chatty, sheep-herding pig. Read full book review >
This literary equivalent of the Look Who's Talking films, originally published in 1988, sees its first American edition. Read full book review >
A misfit chick achieves his heart's desire only to outgrow it, in King-Smith's (Lady Lollipop, 2001, etc.) latest barnyard charmer. Read full book review >
A solitary teenager discovers some distinguished company sharing his private place in this beguilingly matter-of-fact ghost story. Read full book review >
The author of Spider Sparrow (2000) again looks to society's margins, chronicling the growth of an unlikely friendship between a seedy, solitary septuagenarian and a newly arrived young family. Read full book review >
Charlie Muffin, a mouse farmer, taxidermist, and tinkerer, finds his calm, orderly existence in turmoil when Merry Day, a high-spirited, determined young lady, challenges him to breed a green mouse. Read full book review >
Fans of King-Smith's light, wry animal stories (The Spotty Pig, 1997, etc.) will be shocked by this brutal Christian allegory. Read full book review >
Searching for treasure washed up by a fierce coastal storm, eight-year-old Kirstie discovers a strange looking package-shaped object with long tendrils poking out from each of its four corners. Read full book review >
The pair that collaborated on I Love Guinea Pigs (1995) teams up again on a universally appealing subject, rendered quite personal by King-Smith. Read full book review >
King-Smith (see review, above) leaves behind guinea pigs of all manner, pigs who herd sheep, and cats with pets to tell the story of a stray—not a mongrel, but a kindly, 75-year-old woman named Henrietta Hickathrift. Read full book review >
Sophie (Sophie in the Saddle, 1994, etc.) is back again, in what is to be the last in the series. Read full book review >
In a short, simple chapter book, King-Smith (The School Mouse, 1995, etc.) tells the blissfully silly story of poor Mr. Potter who, after his parents are accidentally poisoned by a dinner of tinned crab on his 50th birthday, gets his first pet. Read full book review >
As usual, King-Smith (Harriet's Hare, 1995, etc.) gives readers a children's book that's everything it should be. Read full book review >
Another sure-to-be-popular addition to the "Read and Wonder" series of nonfiction picture books, for which this author and illustrator created All Pigs Are Beautiful (1993). Read full book review >
King-Smith (Sophie in the Saddle, 1994, etc.) parodies human behavior in another of his animal fantasies. Read full book review >
King-Smith's "determined" Sophie, who first appeared, at four, in Sophie's Snail (1989), has always been a winning character; such vicissitudes as a suburban domicile, obstreperous twin brothers, and her parents' proscriptions against pets (mellowing more with each book) have never diverted her from her goal of becoming a "lady farmer." Read full book review >
A Collection of Stories and Poems, as well as several excerpts—e.g., from White Fang, Black Beauty, and the editor's own novels. Read full book review >
A parrot is too expensive, so Abby decides to teach one of the farmyard hens to talk. Read full book review >
The delightfully determined small person introduced in Sophie's Snail (1989) celebrates her fifth birthday on Christmas Day; honoring her plan to become a "lady farmer," her parents and twin brothers give her a splendid toy farm, but her live pets are still limited to the wood lice, slugs, earthworms, and so on she keeps in the potting shed. Read full book review >
When Brigid espies a leprechaun, it's due to a lucky combination of circumstances: she's an only child celebrating her eighth birthday—and she also has a hole in her boot. Read full book review >
