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MATTIE: The Story of a Hedgehog by G. D. Griffiths

MATTIE: The Story of a Hedgehog

By

Pub Date: May 31st, 1977
Publisher: Delacorte

Mattie's adventures from birth to ""eternal night,"" presented in a story with disappearing characters and a wholly inappropriate vocabulary. Hedgehogs live in England and Europe where gardeners, recognizing their taste for insects, value their presence. Mattie, one of five in a litter, fares better than the brother who gets misplaced and dies of fright; she has the usual assortment of exploratory forays and close calls, often crossing paths with the neighborhood people. But her story is also a screen for mini-lectures--on general habits and life cycle changes--which slow down the proceedings, and the words themselves--splay, assuaged, dudgeon, trilby, convolvulus, tench--will turn away the most intrepid readers.