CHEWING THE CUD

Dick King-Smith recounts his life through three careers--farming, teaching, and writing children's books. He and his wife, Myrle, spent 14 years at Woodland's Farm in England before the farm failed; he describes it as an extension of child pet-keeping. Despite King-Smith's success as a writer, particularly of THE SHEEP-PIG, made into the hit movie BABE, most of the memoir focuses on his farming years in a series of vignettes of various animal friends. King-Smith tells those stories with a strong sense of pacing and humor. Overall, however, he is an uninspired reader with an indistinct voice. A.B. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/NOV 05]