What do you think?
Rate this book
The Animals of Farthing Wood #5-7
The Farthing Wood Collection III
This is a reissue of three wonderful animal novels in one volume. Colin Dann's books combine adventure and fantasy stories with a strong interest in wildlife and conservation.
This edition includes the stories:
- The Siege of White Deer Park
- In the Path of the Storm
- Battle for the Park
This edition includes the stories:
- The Siege of White Deer Park
- In the Path of the Storm
- Battle for the Park
528 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
7 people are currently reading
44 people want to read
About the author
Colin Dann
102 books87 followersColin Dann (born 1943 in Richmond, Surrey (now part of London)) is an English author. He is best known for his The Animals of Farthing Wood series of books, which was subsequently made into an animated series.
Dann worked at the publishing firm William Collins Sons & Co. for thirteen years, and his first novel, The Animals of Farthing Wood, was written during this period. The original cover for this and a dozen others was painted by Portal artist Frances Broomfield.
Colin Dann, recipient of Britain's Arts Council National Award for Children's Literature, is also the author of six sequels and a prequel to The Animals of Farthing Wood.
Dann worked at the publishing firm William Collins Sons & Co. for thirteen years, and his first novel, The Animals of Farthing Wood, was written during this period. The original cover for this and a dozen others was painted by Portal artist Frances Broomfield.
Colin Dann, recipient of Britain's Arts Council National Award for Children's Literature, is also the author of six sequels and a prequel to The Animals of Farthing Wood.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 11, 2014
There's an interesting contrast to "comic book time" here. Spider-Man has been the same age for the past 40 years, but these animals get older and their lifespans are quite short compared to humans. This means that not all of the familiar characters are around any more, and new animals have replaced them. This particularly applies to foxes, and you may find it useful to draw a family tree so that you can keep track of who's who!
This isn't a bad book(s) by any means, but I'm glad the series stopped here. Aside from anything else, I think it got to a point where the animals deserve a happy ending and a peaceful "retirement", rather than facing an escalating series of dangers.
Looking at the individual books from this collection:
The Siege of White Deer Park
This represents a bit of a shift from previous books. In the rest of the series so far, the threats have been relatively mundane. For instance, crossing a road is easy for most humans, but a lot more dangerous for small animals. The threat in this book is more like the alleged Beast of Bodmin. I did like the reference to an ancient Lore (rather than Law) amongst wild creatures, although this idea wasn't really developed.
I also liked Adder's pragmatic attitude towards small rodents: he kept to the terms of the Oath of Mutual Protection, and didn't eat any of the mice or voles who he travelled with, but now that they are all long dead and their descendants have bred with the other residents of the park, he sees them all as fair game.
In the Path of the Storm
This book was originally published in 1989. In October 1987, there was a huge storm in southern England (generally referred to as a hurricane); see this link for more info:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/in-d...
I was 13 at the time, living in Sussex, and I remember it vividly.
I'm sure that storm influenced the author when he wrote this book. Where I lived, the wind blew down lots of trees (just like in the book), and others were weakened enough that they had to be chopped down later. In fact, you could even argue that it was the same storm; after all, other fictional stories have referenced real-life events.
Battle for the Park
This book introduces a prominent new character: Dash, a female hare. She's not the first female character to have a name outside her species (cf Paddock the toad and Holly the owl), but I think it's significant that she wasn't introduced to be an existing male character's mate.
The rats are the main antagonist in this book, and they're a bit of an odd case. Throughout the series, they've almost been the default choice as an animal that it's ok to kill. This might be because there weren't any in the original Farthing Wood group, so readers won't be too bothered if any of the predators eat rats when they go hunting.
However, I think they've been treated rather unfairly. Although there are several references to them spreading disease, the book even acknowledges that these rats are healthy (so they won't be dying out on their own). I know a couple of people who have pet rats, so I'm more inclined to be sympathetic. (For another view, you could look at The Tale of One Bad Rat: it's a very good story, but emphatically not for young children.)
If Fox's Feud was a metaphor for the immigration debate then this book takes the opposite approach. Now that the Farthing Wood group have settled in, they resent new arrivals taking up space and resources. That seems a bit hypocritical; after all, Toad explicitly commented in a previous book that Tawny Owl had killed several of the local creatures (for food) after he moved in. The author dealt with this by making the rats almost cartoonishly evil: they literally evicted animals from their own homes (e.g. a badger's set) rather than just moving in next door.
This isn't a bad book(s) by any means, but I'm glad the series stopped here. Aside from anything else, I think it got to a point where the animals deserve a happy ending and a peaceful "retirement", rather than facing an escalating series of dangers.
Looking at the individual books from this collection:
The Siege of White Deer Park
This represents a bit of a shift from previous books. In the rest of the series so far, the threats have been relatively mundane. For instance, crossing a road is easy for most humans, but a lot more dangerous for small animals. The threat in this book is more like the alleged Beast of Bodmin. I did like the reference to an ancient Lore (rather than Law) amongst wild creatures, although this idea wasn't really developed.
I also liked Adder's pragmatic attitude towards small rodents: he kept to the terms of the Oath of Mutual Protection, and didn't eat any of the mice or voles who he travelled with, but now that they are all long dead and their descendants have bred with the other residents of the park, he sees them all as fair game.
In the Path of the Storm
This book was originally published in 1989. In October 1987, there was a huge storm in southern England (generally referred to as a hurricane); see this link for more info:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/in-d...
I was 13 at the time, living in Sussex, and I remember it vividly.
I'm sure that storm influenced the author when he wrote this book. Where I lived, the wind blew down lots of trees (just like in the book), and others were weakened enough that they had to be chopped down later. In fact, you could even argue that it was the same storm; after all, other fictional stories have referenced real-life events.
Battle for the Park
This book introduces a prominent new character: Dash, a female hare. She's not the first female character to have a name outside her species (cf Paddock the toad and Holly the owl), but I think it's significant that she wasn't introduced to be an existing male character's mate.
The rats are the main antagonist in this book, and they're a bit of an odd case. Throughout the series, they've almost been the default choice as an animal that it's ok to kill. This might be because there weren't any in the original Farthing Wood group, so readers won't be too bothered if any of the predators eat rats when they go hunting.
However, I think they've been treated rather unfairly. Although there are several references to them spreading disease, the book even acknowledges that these rats are healthy (so they won't be dying out on their own). I know a couple of people who have pet rats, so I'm more inclined to be sympathetic. (For another view, you could look at The Tale of One Bad Rat: it's a very good story, but emphatically not for young children.)
If Fox's Feud was a metaphor for the immigration debate then this book takes the opposite approach. Now that the Farthing Wood group have settled in, they resent new arrivals taking up space and resources. That seems a bit hypocritical; after all, Toad explicitly commented in a previous book that Tawny Owl had killed several of the local creatures (for food) after he moved in. The author dealt with this by making the rats almost cartoonishly evil: they literally evicted animals from their own homes (e.g. a badger's set) rather than just moving in next door.
Read
July 19, 2011The Siege of White Deer Park
This is probably my least favourite Animals of Farthing Wood story because the animals are really and truly helpless in the face of a massive wild cat hunting in their Park - including the rare White Deer. My partner - who's English - tells me that there used to be rich people in England who would purchase exotic cat cubs and then release them into the wild when they grew too big. I know, it sounds ridiculous, right? The existence of wild big cats in Britain is unproven, but there have been reported sightings, much like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. For further information, check out the Wikipedia page dedicated to British big cats. I just happened to stumble across the page before reading the book.
I feel this book is really anti-climactic, because in the previous books, Fox has always managed to save the day. When the hardest winter on record hit, he organised it so that everyone had enough food to eat and then exposed the poachers and saved the white deer. He organised Scarface's murder when the old fox was terrorising and murdering Farthing Wood animals. And here in this story, he just wants to sit and wait it out. Which, OK, yeah, I understand in a way. He and the rest of the original Farthing Wood group are elderly and most of them are dead from the winter, from Scarface, from the Beast, or from old age. But this story does nothing to add to the legend of Farthing Wood. It's just a terrifying story with a poor solution to a major problem.
It's also bleedingly obvious why they didn't cartoon-ify this book. It's way too graphic for the simplicity of the other books and the ending, as I said, is rather poor.
In the Path of the Storm
This is another wonderful example of just what wildlife has to go through during one of their seasons. Although I feel slightly let down that Plucky is indeed Fox's great-grandson, not just grandson. But it's a pretty good story about when the stream is poisoned and the Great Stag dies, a younger brute stag takes over the herd and tries to take over the park. he forbids anyone else from drinking at the pond, which is the only source of clean water left.
My favourite part in this probably has to be when Badger drinks from the stream and thinks he is dying, and then it turns out he's actually OK, and Fox and Vixen dig him a new set next door to them. Ah, Badger.
The sub-plot concerns Tawny Owl revisiting the old Farthing Wood, which has been renamed Farthinghurst and only the Great beech remains. He's trying to find a mate because some of the other animals pick on him for being a bachelor. he finds this mate called Holly, whom I really dislike. But the Great Beech is destroyed when a hurricane touches down and also destroyed habitat in White Deer Park. It makes me wonder just how far away the park is from the old Farthing Wood and also, what the fuck is a hurricane doing in England? Get me out of this country.
Battle for the Park
Having been the only story bar the prequel that I had never actually read before, I was surprised to find that it actually did correspond with the third and final season of the cartoon. Here I was, thinking for most of my life that the rat infestation and disappearance of random animals was somewhat contrived. As it is, the only major discrepancy I can find with the cartoon is that they freaking kill Badger to (re)introduce Shadow and Herkle and Weasel ends up leaving the park to have her babies. Which is amusing because in the books, Weasel is male.
I am still saddened by the number of deaths in this book. Well, not so much the numbers but exactly who died. I was in fear the entire book of Badger giving up the ghost. I was upset by
This is probably my least favourite Animals of Farthing Wood story because the animals are really and truly helpless in the face of a massive wild cat hunting in their Park - including the rare White Deer. My partner - who's English - tells me that there used to be rich people in England who would purchase exotic cat cubs and then release them into the wild when they grew too big. I know, it sounds ridiculous, right? The existence of wild big cats in Britain is unproven, but there have been reported sightings, much like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. For further information, check out the Wikipedia page dedicated to British big cats. I just happened to stumble across the page before reading the book.
I feel this book is really anti-climactic, because in the previous books, Fox has always managed to save the day. When the hardest winter on record hit, he organised it so that everyone had enough food to eat and then exposed the poachers and saved the white deer. He organised Scarface's murder when the old fox was terrorising and murdering Farthing Wood animals. And here in this story, he just wants to sit and wait it out. Which, OK, yeah, I understand in a way. He and the rest of the original Farthing Wood group are elderly and most of them are dead from the winter, from Scarface, from the Beast, or from old age. But this story does nothing to add to the legend of Farthing Wood. It's just a terrifying story with a poor solution to a major problem.
It's also bleedingly obvious why they didn't cartoon-ify this book. It's way too graphic for the simplicity of the other books and the ending, as I said, is rather poor.
In the Path of the Storm
This is another wonderful example of just what wildlife has to go through during one of their seasons. Although I feel slightly let down that Plucky is indeed Fox's great-grandson, not just grandson. But it's a pretty good story about when the stream is poisoned and the Great Stag dies, a younger brute stag takes over the herd and tries to take over the park. he forbids anyone else from drinking at the pond, which is the only source of clean water left.
My favourite part in this probably has to be when Badger drinks from the stream and thinks he is dying, and then it turns out he's actually OK, and Fox and Vixen dig him a new set next door to them. Ah, Badger.
The sub-plot concerns Tawny Owl revisiting the old Farthing Wood, which has been renamed Farthinghurst and only the Great beech remains. He's trying to find a mate because some of the other animals pick on him for being a bachelor. he finds this mate called Holly, whom I really dislike. But the Great Beech is destroyed when a hurricane touches down and also destroyed habitat in White Deer Park. It makes me wonder just how far away the park is from the old Farthing Wood and also, what the fuck is a hurricane doing in England? Get me out of this country.
Battle for the Park
Having been the only story bar the prequel that I had never actually read before, I was surprised to find that it actually did correspond with the third and final season of the cartoon. Here I was, thinking for most of my life that the rat infestation and disappearance of random animals was somewhat contrived. As it is, the only major discrepancy I can find with the cartoon is that they freaking kill Badger to (re)introduce Shadow and Herkle and Weasel ends up leaving the park to have her babies. Which is amusing because in the books, Weasel is male.
I am still saddened by the number of deaths in this book. Well, not so much the numbers but exactly who died. I was in fear the entire book of Badger giving up the ghost. I was upset by
August 14, 2011
I think it's a good thing that (timeline-wise) the 3 books in this collection are the last books about Farthing Wood.
They weren't bad books or anything, and I won't say I didn't like reading them, but there were one or two things that kept nagging me constantly, and I'll explain below.
For a start: they are nowhere near as good the two tales in the previous collection. OK, the bar set by that collection was high, very high, and I knew these three probably weren't as good, but I was, dunno, just a bit more disappointed than I would have liked. I didn't really care for the plots either (though Battle for the Park was quite interesting) but that's probably mainly due to my third reason.
Second, I think there are just too many new characters around. There are a LOT of fox cubs around, and I totally lost track as of who was whose cub. I didn't feel connected to any of them. Also many of the smaller original Farthing Wood animals had already died, new ones taking their place.
But my biggest concern by far was the timespan each of these books covered. While each of the previous books covered about 6 months each I think, each of these three covered at least one year. Already some dead at the beginning, throughout these three books the band is further thinned out, and that's when I started fearing that Fox or Vixen (and also Badger) might be next with the turning of the next page.
And that when you just finished the first book... For the next 350 or so pages, the only thing I hoped for was that Fox and Vixen would make it to the end.
Somewhere in one of the books it says "They were now in their fourth generation (Fox counting as first)". Now here comes some math:
Foxes are always born in spring. The journey to White Deer Park is made in summer, and when they started Fox was already fully-grown, so he should be at least 1 year old (wouldn't be surprised though if he was a year older, and Badger even older, but let's round in his favor).
Then they winter at White Deer Park, at the end of which comes spring and Fox is at least 2. The second collection also spans a year in total, making him 3 years old.
So far so good. If these three books continue at this rate, he will be old, but not exceptionally. But instead it goes twice as fast, meaning he's now 5-6 years old.
I read it some time ago, but I believe that at this point there aren't that many pages left anymore, the plot is drawing to a conclusion, but there's still the possibility of something happening to Fox or Vixen (or Badger, who must be ancient by now).
Maybe that when I reread them I might be able to focus a bit more on the plot itself and hopefully enjoy them more, now that I know the outcome, because three stars don't do this book justice, but after my first reading it wasn't worth four stars either.
They weren't bad books or anything, and I won't say I didn't like reading them, but there were one or two things that kept nagging me constantly, and I'll explain below.
For a start: they are nowhere near as good the two tales in the previous collection. OK, the bar set by that collection was high, very high, and I knew these three probably weren't as good, but I was, dunno, just a bit more disappointed than I would have liked. I didn't really care for the plots either (though Battle for the Park was quite interesting) but that's probably mainly due to my third reason.
Second, I think there are just too many new characters around. There are a LOT of fox cubs around, and I totally lost track as of who was whose cub. I didn't feel connected to any of them. Also many of the smaller original Farthing Wood animals had already died, new ones taking their place.
But my biggest concern by far was the timespan each of these books covered. While each of the previous books covered about 6 months each I think, each of these three covered at least one year. Already some dead at the beginning, throughout these three books the band is further thinned out, and that's when I started fearing that Fox or Vixen (and also Badger) might be next with the turning of the next page.
And that when you just finished the first book... For the next 350 or so pages, the only thing I hoped for was that Fox and Vixen would make it to the end.
Somewhere in one of the books it says "They were now in their fourth generation (Fox counting as first)". Now here comes some math:
Foxes are always born in spring. The journey to White Deer Park is made in summer, and when they started Fox was already fully-grown, so he should be at least 1 year old (wouldn't be surprised though if he was a year older, and Badger even older, but let's round in his favor).
Then they winter at White Deer Park, at the end of which comes spring and Fox is at least 2. The second collection also spans a year in total, making him 3 years old.
So far so good. If these three books continue at this rate, he will be old, but not exceptionally. But instead it goes twice as fast, meaning he's now 5-6 years old.
I read it some time ago, but I believe that at this point there aren't that many pages left anymore, the plot is drawing to a conclusion, but there's still the possibility of something happening to Fox or Vixen (or Badger, who must be ancient by now).
Maybe that when I reread them I might be able to focus a bit more on the plot itself and hopefully enjoy them more, now that I know the outcome, because three stars don't do this book justice, but after my first reading it wasn't worth four stars either.
August 27, 2014
This along with the other animals of farthing wood books is a brilliant read and it has such good morals of respect for wildlife and the importance in preserving it. The stories are also interesting and keep your attention. Although as with a lot of the older kids stories I would question it's suitability for younger children as it holds no punches but it's a really good read.
August 20, 2013
What I remember most from these last books of the Farthing Wood Collection, is that Tawny Owl and Weasel almost broke my heart. Awww! Loved this just as much as the others.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews