Editions

The Crowstarver

  • Imprint: Puffin

  • ISBN: 9780141368726

  • Length: 208  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 13mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 149g

  • RRP: £6.99

The Crowstarver

A reissue of a beautiful story for older readers in which bestselling author Dick King-Smith creates a fascinating picture of rural life at the time of the Second World War.
Discovered as a foundling in a lambing pen, Spider Sparrow grows up surrounded by animals. From sheep and horses to wild otters and foxes, Spider loves them all, even the crows he must scare away from the newly sown wheat. Crowstarving was the idea job for Spider - he was on his own, yet never alone for all around him were animals of one sort or another. Amazingly, every animal who meets Spider implicitly trusts the young boy. This magical rapport is Spider's unique gift, but nothing else in his tough life is so easy.

  • Imprint: Puffin

  • ISBN: 9780141368726

  • Length: 208  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 13mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 149g

  • RRP: £6.99

Reviews

  • A powerful and heartwarming story... one of those children's books much enjoyed by adults

    Times Educational Supplement

  • This book demonstrates everything that is good about writing for children. It is a book of love, trust and wonder thoroughly recommended to adults and young people alike

    Carousel children's book magazine

More in this Series

View all View all
View all View all

About the Author

Dick King-Smith

Dick King-Smith served in the Grenadier Guards during the Second World War, and afterwards spent twenty years as a farmer in Gloucestershire, the county of his birth. Many of his stories are inspired by his farming experiences. He wrote a great number of children's books, including The Sheep-Pig (winner of the Guardian Award and filmed as Babe), Harry's Mad, The Hodgeheg, Martin's Mice, The Invisible Dog, The Queen's Nose and The Crowstarver. At the British Book Awards in 1991 he was voted Children's Author of the Year. In 2009 he was made OBE for services to children's literature. Dick King-Smith died in 2011 at the age of eighty-eight.

Dick King-Smith

Related articles

/content/dam/prh/articles/archive/children-archive/puffin/kindness-list-snippet.png

5 books that will inspire kindness

A little bit of kindness always goes a long way. These books all celebrate kindness in unique and wonderful ways and are perfect to inspire compassion in readers.

Our Use of Cookies

We use cookies on this site to enable certain parts of the site to function and to collect information about your use of the site so that we can improve our visitors’ experience.

For more on our cookies and changing your settings click here

Strictly Necessary

Strictly Necessary cookies enable core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility. You may disable these by changing your browser settings, but this may affect how the website functions. See More.

Analytics

Analytics cookies help us to improve our website by collecting and reporting information on how you use it. These cookies may be set by us or by third-party providers whose services we have added to our pages. See More.

Preferences & Features

Preference and Feature cookies allow our website to remember choices you make, such as your language preferences and any customisations you make to pages on our website during your visit. See More.

Targeting / Advertising

Targeting cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you and your interests. They perform functions like preventing the same content from reappearing, ensuring ads are displayed and, in some cases, selecting content based on your interests. See More.