Town Watch

Books like Harry's Mad and Saddlebottom have made Dick King-Smith a popular author with Juniors. Town Watch is another of his departures from fiction; it is an account of what creatures can be found in cities, how they can be identified, what their characteristics/idiosyncrasies are, and finally, what children can do to help wild life survive. Just a collection of personal anecdotes and facts, but the book works, and is a mine of information. Its secret lies in the style of the telling. All of us who care about our environment and the importance of life must endorse the attitudes and values which underlie Dick King-Smith's Text and which are absorbed imperceptibly by the reader. I'll stock this book in the school bookshop and library.